The scientific scramble to discover the first generation of drugs
created through genetic engineering.
The biotech arena emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, when molecular
biology, one of the fastest-moving areas of basic science in the
twentieth century, met the business world. Gene Jockeys is a detailed
study of the biotech projects that led to five of the first ten
recombinant DNA drugs to be approved for medical use in the United
States: human insulin, human growth hormone, alpha interferon,
erythropoietin, and tissue plasminogen activator.
Drawing on corporate documents obtained from patent litigation, as well
as interviews with the ambitious biologists who called themselves gene
jockeys, historian Nicolas Rasmussen chronicles the remarkable, and
often secretive, work of the scientists who built a new domain between
academia and the drug industry in the pursuit of intellectual rewards
and big payouts. In contrast to some who critique the rise of
biotechnology, Rasmussen contends that biotech was not a swindle, even
if the public did pay a very high price for the development of what
began as public scientific resources. Within the biotech enterprise, the
work of corporate scientists went well beyond what biologists had
already accomplished within universities, and it accelerated the medical
use of the new drugs by several years.
In his technically detailed and readable narrative, Rasmussen focuses on
the visible and often heavy hands that construct and maintain the
markets in public goods like science. He looks closely at how science
follows money, and vice versa, as researchers respond to the pressures
and potential rewards of commercially viable innovations. In
biotechnology, many of those engaged in crafting markets for genetically
engineered drugs were biologists themselves who were in fact trying to
do science.
This book captures that heady, fleeting moment when a biologist could
expect to do great science through the private sector and be rewarded
with both wealth and scientific acclaim.
