The seniors of the Science, Technology and Society (STS) program of the Claremont Colleges, along with the Hixon Forum for Responsive Science and Technology of Harvey Mudd and the Public Policy Analysis program of Pomona, organized a two-day conference "Biotechnology and Beyond" held last weekend, February 18 and 19.

The conference featured five panels and two keynote addresses, representing a range of disciplines and perspectives. The panels served to frame the ethical, political and social issues surrounding the relationship between biotechnology and industry, agriculture, practical ethics, and media. Free and open to the public, the conference provided a forum, formally initiated by student discussants, for audience members to ask questions and voice concerns.

Matthew Preusch A student partakes in one of the numerous forms of protest that took place during the Students for Bernard Field Station’s alternate conference at Smith Campus Center last weekend. The BFS group was protesting the "Biotechnology and Beyond" conference.

At the same time, the Students for the Bernard Field Station (SBFS) held an adjunct conference to call attention to the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI), which plans to build its campus on eleven of the 89 acres currently occupied by the field station. Students and community members are protesting not only the demolition of a part of the Bernard Field Station (BFS), but also KGIs close ties to a number of biotech corporations. These relationships are seen by critics as turning KGI into an industrial laboratory rather than an academic institution.

At the "Biotechnology and Beyond" conference, issues of patents and intellectual property, genetically engineered organisms, and the absolute necessity of ethical exploration proved persistent themes. In a letter to the ASPC Budget Committee, the organizers stated, "We have designed our conference to include professionals from the biotechnology industry who can directly address how ethical issues are handled within their respective workplaces."

Wes Jackson, Ph.D., and Martha Crouch, Ph.D., each discussed sustainable agricultural practices as an alternative solution to genetically engineered foods and environmental manipulation.

Professor of Plant Pathology at Montana State Dave Sands, a Pomona alumnus, voiced the opinion that we can be selective in our judgement of biotechnology as some genetic engineering practices (namely vitamin-producing rice to be grown in third world countries) may serve to relieve human suffering. Adam Rogers, also a Pomona alumnus and Science Editor at Newsweek, outlined the role of the media in representing science and biotechnology.

On the main stage, Jeremy Rifkin, renowned author, activist and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C., delivered a dynamic keynote address Friday evening in Rose Hills Theater. Sponsored by the Office of the President at Pomona College, Rifkin spoke about the implications and impact of biotechnology, emphasizing the need to address fundamental questions concerning the value of life and the future of human society.

The conference was created to raise questions and awareness of the issues surrounding the advancement of biotechnology. While organizers acknowledged that the controversy surrounding the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) was a motivating factor, they also said that the conference was not intended specifically to deal with the KGI issue.

Kate Finger ’00, one of the students involved in coordinating the conference, said that her interest in biotechnology issues stemmed from her concern for the BFS. "We felt that the conference should address biotechnology on a broader level," said Finger. With a better understanding of how biotechnology will effect our lives professionally and personally, the organizers of the conference hoped to provide a means to inform and prepare attendees to deal with issues like the KGI.

Two other conferences, which occurred at the same time as "Biotechnology and Beyond," dealt with KGI specifically. One meeting was hosted by KGI, and focused on how biotech firms could be enticed to relocate to the San Gabriel Valley. The other was organized by the Students for the Bernard Field Station (SBFS), and consisted of direct attacks on the KGI.

While KGI strategized about how to create the Silicon Valley of biotechnology, students and professors at both conferences voiced opposition to the KGI. Many fear that it is trading on the established reputation of the Claremont Colleges to create an alliance between what is cloaked as academic pursuit and corporate development, as well as to biotech industry to the area.

Opponents fear that KGI will act as a puppet for corporations; there would be strong encouragement of students and faculty to patent and market their work, promoting not only the business of biotechnology but also the philosophy that life is indeed patentable and ownable. Speakers expressed concern that the desire for knowledge for its own sake has been lost, and in its place stands corporate sponsored research, worthwhile only insofar as it brings profit.

The SBFS gathered in the Smith Campus Center courtyard to voice their distress over the imminent development of the KGI campus on the land of the BFS. "Our goal was to educate people about how biotechnology threatens the Bernard Field Station," said Charles Cange ’02, who both coordinated the SBFS event and served as a student discussant on the first panel of the "Biotechnology and Beyond" conference concerning biotechnology, industry and society. "We weren’t there to compete with the biotech conference, but we wanted to make sure that the KGI and BFS issues were addressed."

One of the main issues surrounding the KGI is the histories of its corporate backers. Associate Professor Joe Parker, who participated as a speaker at the SBFS event, said, "The conference itself drew a lot of people were interested in biotechnology generally. We thought we would provide information about KGI in particular, and the companies involved with KGI."

A corporate roundtable of industry executives meets with the school’s faculty, administration, trustees and advisory council to shape its research and curriculum. Parker feels that the companies represented in the roundtable, like Monsanto, Bayer and DuPont, have "highly unethical and questionable pasts."

In the 1960s the chemical company Monsanto manufactured Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide that was used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War. In July 1980 a group of veterans filed a $960 million suit against Monsanto and six other companies, stating that exposure to the plant-killer caused a wide variety of ailments. Bayer participated in Nazi Holocaust medical experiments during the 1940s, while DuPont was responsible for dumping 186 million pounds of toxic waste in the Necco Park (NY) landfill from the mid-1930s until 1977, when the site was finally identified as a source of water contamination.

Professor of Politics Rick Worthington and Smith, who assisted the STS seniors in organizing "Biotechnology and Beyond," both expressed support for Cange and the SBFS event. "I think it was wonderful that people were talking about this in a variety of discussions," said Worthington.

Worthington agreed that the conference provided a forum for students to address the ethical, political and social controversies surrounding biotechnology, as well as the relationships between industry, research and education. "The KGI represents such an important investment on the part of the Claremont Colleges," he said. "It makes the issues raised at the conference especially relevant to our own community."

Cange and Lenny Molina ‘02 scheduled the SBFS events around the biotechnology conference so that those attending the conference could also listen to the speakers outside.

For Parker, the biotechnology conferences were especially important because they "exemplified the free exchange of ideas, which KGI can’t because of what it is. Much of the knowledge in biotechnology is privately owned, in a way that runs against the grain of normal academic discourse. Problems start up when academics become business."