Toronto, Canada
November 21, 2003

From a press release via Agnet Nov. 21/03 II

Genetic code will become the dominant language in the world, making possible everything from personalized prescriptions and diets to chickens with three wings, while transforming the economy and society.

Best-selling author Juan Enriquez, Chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy and former Director of the Life Sciences Project at Harvard Business School, told a Canadian audience last week that Canada needs to educate its population and attract some of the world's best brains to compete in this revolution.

Enriquez stressed that countries in a knowledge economy need only a few thousand smart people. "You can build the richest country in the world on a Caribbean island by cherry-picking brains. You don't have to move a bank account. You don't have to move a building. All you have to move is brains. That's a very different economy," he said.

Enriquez addressed about 100 business, industry and political leaders at The Conference Board of Canada's November 13 conference Innovation and Commercialization: Accessing Global Knowledge, Growing Global Markets.

Economy and Society in transformation

The difference in productivity between the richest people in the world and the poorest has risen to 427:1 in a knowledge economy from five-to-one in an agricultural society. Countries such as Luxembourg, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan educated their populations in the language of computer technology and have enjoyed extraordinary economic growth.

"The language, which no one spoke in 1960, is now 93 per cent of the data transmitted in the world, which means that if your kids are not educated in how to use, how to apply, how to understand digital language, they are functionally illiterate in the world's dominant language."

He said in a knowledge economy, human capital really matters, because resources don't generate the wealth, people do. "In a knowledge economy, if you don't treat people right, you're dead."

Like Columbus discovering the "Indies", Enriquez said we don't know where these early maps of the genome will ultimately lead.

"On the 12th of February 2001, the single most important map ever published was available to each of you on the internet," said Enriquez. "And if you think that previous maps had any effect whatsoever on the rise and fall of nations and industries, the consequences will be at least just as great with a map of 3.2 billion letters that are inside each of your cells."

Genomics will have a revolutionary impact on numerous industries, including medicine, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and information technology. Medicine will be based on assessing whether genetic tendencies increase or decrease the probability of disease, instead of whether a patient is sick or well.

"That leads to a very different type of medical system, because instead of getting a yes-no from a doctor, they're getting a series of probability curves," he said. "Maybe you should start taking chemotherapy before you get breast cancer. This is a very different world. It's a world in which people are going to start getting personalized prescription profiles. By the way, should your insurance agent know, should your employer know, should the government know?"

Enriquez opened his presentation with an image of a three-winged chicken. He noted that the debate about genomics research has been driven by what he called "the yuck factor." The same arguments were used, he noted, in opposition to "test-tube babies" 25 years ago, a procedure that is now commonplace and accepted.
"The scientific standard the American political authorities are applying is - if it's yucky, I don't want to do it," he said. But research such as adding a third wing to a chicken may have a vital impact on the life expectancy and quality of life for future generations.

"Once you have the codes, then you can change them, so you can reprogram life forms," he said. "Why shouldn't you be able to re-grow certain body parts using your own gene code that you've got in every one of your cells? Maybe if you've got diabetes you can re-grow part of your pancreas, maybe if you've lost part of your eye you can re-grow it, maybe if you've lost 90 per cent of your skin in a burn you could re-grow it."

Canada's place in the world

Regulating genomics work will be one of the great challenges of the future, especially if people can freely obtain genetic material with no restraints on how they use it. He also called on the world to "get serious" about strengthening bio-weapons conventions.

"That is something that Canada can actually do that is very important for the world. We have to put some teeth behind bio-weapons conventions and we have to do it before the weapons are out there. Canada has been a leader in nuclear disarmament, it should be a leader in this."

Biotechonomy is a company that is researching and funding startups that enable the genomic revolution. Enriquez is also founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Science Project, and author of the global best- seller As the Future Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your life Work, Health and Wealth.