Dialogue: Young the standard-bearers of our scientific revolution

As we enter the age of genomics, it is vitally important that students are equipped with scientific skills, writes JIM WATSON*

Two weeks ago, I was at a science forum attended by high-school students from New Zealand and Australia. I listened to the comments of some of the participants on science in this country and their role in its future.

"I have never before seen the link between going to university and moving on to a career as a scientist," said one student. "For the first time, I'm beginning to feel confident that I can make a contribution."

"Previously, scientists sounded so daunting that I felt I could never make the leap from studying science to working as a scientist," said another. "Now suddenly I can see why I want to be a scientist."

Those who attended the National Science Forum will be this country's standard-bearers in the scientific revolution that is taking place around the world. Their role is critical because no revolution can take place without engaging youth. We will advance society only if we prepare the way for our youth to take up the mantle of discovery.

And that is where discussion of this country's future sometimes wanders off course. "Knowledge economy" is fast becoming one of the most overused and least useful terms bandied about in common speech. It seems to suggest a panacea for the ills that afflict the economy.

Yet the present radical change is about neither knowledge nor the economy. It is about people - more specifically, young people.

If we are to attain any of the wonderful benefits that have been promised in the name of the knowledge economy, we will only do so thanks to the efforts of those who have yet to make their major contribution to this country's future.

We have encouraged generations of students to complete tertiary education in order to carve out careers. Yet we tend to use a rear-view-mirror approach, and a punishing one to boot, as we focus on training people to do today's jobs while we argue we are preparing them for the future.

And when, finally, they are ready to start work, we tell them they don't have the relevant experience, by which time they carry a monstrous burden of debt.

Although we recognise the importance of equipping students with the skills they will need to master tomorrow's uncertainties, we don't let them know that they, not we, the old guard, are the ones who will make a difference.

As business people, educators and communicators, it is up to us to lay a foundation and legacy of clear thinking and planning.

Nowhere are these issues more crucial than in science, the sector that is, in an educational sense, largely forgotten. It's a sector that we cannot afford to continue to neglect. Understanding science is the future of business. Managing science is becoming the business of the future, and the basis upon which new economies are being built.

What is the basis of this scientific revolution? In the past three decades, we have witnessed a transformational shift in the speed and application of computer and information technology in all walks of life.

But this transformation, radical though it was, is being overtaken at great speed by a biological revolution. This stems from the explosion of databases being produced from living organisms. The sequencing of genomes from organisms as diverse as bacteria, yeast, worms, flies, and, of course, ourselves has moved biology beyond the study of individual genes to the study of all genes, making the genome an explicit object of investigation and representation. Biology has moved from predominantly scholarly observation to a vast collection of databases open for all to interpret.

Last June, we saw the completion of the draft of the human genome. Scientific explorers reached the top of Mt Genome. But only then did they look up to see above them an even higher mountain, the task of interpreting and applying the information contained in the genome.

The publication of the human genome, a decisive and Promethean step in self-knowledge, has placed genomics at the forefront of public awareness.

The genome details our evolutionary history. We can see the relics of pathogens that long ago afflicted humans. We are discovering that humans have far fewer than the 100,000 or more genes scientists believed just six months ago - more like 40,000 to 50,000. This is not so different from the number of genes contained in plants. Even more, we see the close similarity of many plant genes to human genes. Remarkably, the mouse genome and human genome are very similar. Perhaps only a few hundred genes separate the two.

We are beginning to ask how nature can build different organisms from such similar blueprints. We are entering the age of genomics, an age in which genes will be studied in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people, with all sorts of motivations. We cannot and should not stop it, but we must attempt to understand it more thoroughly.

Nowhere is the growing awareness of the role of genomics more evident than in the way that the science of the genome is already shaping the world of business.

It has attracted the interest of capital markets. It has demonstrated that it has the power to address such major global issues as human health, food production, deforestation and industrial processing on terms that are environmentally, commercially and humanly acceptable.

It has also led to the emergence of a generation of leaders who have married scientific expertise and business acumen, leading to the start of new companies whose value increases are stunning the businesses of old.

More importantly, in the context of our future, it is being driven by young people.

One of the leaders of this genomics industry, Dr Craig Venter, is himself a scientist. He founded Celera Genomics and built it into one of the world's most powerful non-government supercomputing facilities.

On a visit to Auckland this year, Dr Venter gave a public lecture of stunning clarity and vision. Media and business leaders were conspicuous by their absence. Yet Dr Venter is driving a business revolution from the unlikely industrial base of biology. Its scope, impact and magnitude already rival, and will quickly outgrow, the software revolution of the past century.

Dr Venter pointed out that New Zealand cannot afford to ignore its heritage, rich in land-based industries, and starve it of the benefits this new-age science has to offer them. He also offered advice on the training of students.

Today's science is not unique in its focus on discovery. Even in ancient times, explorers, like the modern-day scientist, crossed continents to make new discoveries. But sharing their findings with the world was neither fast nor simple. Advanced communication technologies and innovative partnerships are transforming the face of science, allowing the experience of discovery and the excitement of learning to reach further than ever before.

Yet for all that, we can share discoveries more widely and rapidly than ever before.

Unless we develop a culture that is able to engage with science, to understand and debate from an informed position, that revolution will not yield its full potential to our society.

We must start by listening to the likes of Dr Venter and encouraging our young people. It is critical that we encourage our young scientists as they make the journey from student to explorer, and begin to discover new truths at the frontiers of science.

* Jim Watson is the founder and chief executive of biotechnology company Genesis Research and Development.

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