In 1999 a Perkin-Elmer CEO envisioned a pay-for-access genome scheme that would have smothered two decades innovation in biotechnology and genomic medicine.
If the Celera plan had worked, we’d be talking about gene editing and mRNA breakthroughs as luxuries instead of the starting point for public health tools.
Makes you wonder how many other “public goods” in science are still one boardroom away from being privatized. The open-access model didn’t just help science,it made the biotech economy possible. We forget that the real reason so much innovation happened post-2000 is because people didn’t have to ask permission to build on the genome. Imagine if we had to do CRISPR licenses the way we do music sampling.
If the Celera plan had worked, we’d be talking about gene editing and mRNA breakthroughs as luxuries instead of the starting point for public health tools.
Makes you wonder how many other “public goods” in science are still one boardroom away from being privatized. The open-access model didn’t just help science,it made the biotech economy possible. We forget that the real reason so much innovation happened post-2000 is because people didn’t have to ask permission to build on the genome. Imagine if we had to do CRISPR licenses the way we do music sampling.