The Future is Biotech

The future is here

From The Statesman

The recent breakthrough in stem cell research carried out independently in Japan and the USA, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James A Thomson with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, shows another path to human rejuvenation, including a cure for many incurable diseases.

By reprogramming a human skin cell, the researchers have been able to bring it back to its original pure embryonic stage, a pluripotent stage from where the cell could be coaxed to become any of the 220 specialised human cells, for example, heart, lungs, brain, muscle cells, which could be used for customised therapeutic healing. A brain-injured person could live a full, healthy life again. That is the future, perhaps.

The awesome beauty of this discovery is that the process of reversion of a skin cell to its de novo embryonic stage does not involve the destruction of embryos, which many pro-life people from President George W Bush to the late Pope John Paul II condemned as immoral. President Bush has steadfastly denied the use of federal funds “to promote science that destroys life to save life,” despite the fact that most Americans have never been with him on this issue.

Dr Bill Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon by training, who was Senate majority leader (2003-2007), for example, spoke for most Americans, when he said: “I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.” Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said: “Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to alleviate so much suffering. Surely, by working together we can harness its life-giving potential.” Her husband, President Ronald Reagan, spent the last years of his life in Alzheimer’s limbo.

President Bush, nonetheless, repeatedly said, "my way or the highway". You see the power of presidential leadership; and also its limitations because he could not stop the private funding of embryonic stem cell research by states, biotechnology companies, and private universities who have been pursuing the research regardless of the opposition. For example, in 2004 California voters approved a $3-billion bond to promote research in the state.

Since last year, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute has been doing research using the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer process to create specific cell lines from cloned human embryos, which again raised hopes for millions of people suffering from incurable diseases. Harvard research is said to be diseases specific; for example, the nucleus of a skin cell of a diabetic patient is inserted into an unfertilised donor egg, from which the nucleus has been removed. The newly engineered composite egg is nurtured in a Petri dish to develop into an early embryo from which embryonic stem cell lines is developed and guided into becoming healthy insulin producing pancreatic islet cells to replace the diseased ones, for example, in a child suffering from juvenile diabetes.

It is painful to imagine how much a child with juvenile diabetes suffers; or how much the family members endure as they see the wasting away of their loved one with the knowledge that one day if the stem cell research continued there might be hope for a most emaciating human illness. Anytime an older person forgets the name of his own children, you wonder if this could be the beginning of a slow end. In the USA, people look to science and medicine for salvation. They know embryonic stem cells could be the beginning of a new life for persons suffering from fatal ailments. Stem cells that are derived from aborted and discarded embryos could be potentially directed to grow into any kind of specialised cells to repair damaged human parts and trigger a self-regenerative process in the human body. It is an example of how killing life can save lives.

Choosing life over potential life is practical ethics at its best, it has been argued.

Though many people favour embryonic stem cell research, pro-lifers argue that research in regenerative and therapeutic medicine and technology should not be left to the marketplace because somewhere in the process life begins. The late pope John Paul II urged that a “free and virtuous society, which the USA aspires to be, must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage from conception until natural death.”

The Pope was afflicted with Parkinson’s, one of the millions of sufferers of the debilitating disease but he never wavered, and warned “how a tragic coarsening of consciences accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, leading to accommodation and acquiescence in the face of other related evils such as euthanasia, infanticide…”

That’s why many Americans could not ignore the late Pope’s warning that the destruction of embryos to extract stem cells, even when the purpose is to fight diseases and reduce human suffering, would dehumanise us. Stem cell revolution is as momentous as was the smashing of an atom; therefore, it needs safeguards to harness its benefits without the coarsening of our conscience.

The recent development of reprogramming skin cells into embryonic stages offers scientists an equally fertile method of developing cell therapy, which will make destruction of embryos unnecessary. Science has solved its own ethical dilemmas. The discovery also illustrates the concept of “equifinality” in general systems theory, according to which a dynamic system, if challenged, could reach the same goal by other means. There is always an alternative.

And thereby hangs another question: Is human body nothing but an information system that could be reprogrammed cell by cell? We will talk about human soul some other time.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

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Don't Cry for Pakistan

A moment of meditation on Pakistan

From the Statesman
ND Batra

Pakistan is not a failed state but at present it is in a state of dynamic instability, which could spin out of control if the situation is not handled wisely by its neighbors, international allies, and all-weather friends.

And what makes Pakistan an intriguing story is that to insure its own survival it has successfully developed nuclear weapons and now has enough arsenals to cause nuclear havoc all around, if they fall into the hands of Islamic militants.

Thanks to the unsupervised autonomy given to its footloose nuclear scientists, AQ Khan and others, to develop nuclear weapons, it has also been a nuclear proliferator: Iran is said to have benefited from its nuclear technology. Having conceived and given birth to the Taliban movement, it is a breeding ground and hideout for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants and terrorists.

Added to its complexity is yet another remarkable layer: of a progressive, liberal and somewhat secular Pakistan that surfaced recently when Benazir Bhutto returned home after eight years of exile; and when lawyers, journalists, students and other open-minded moderate groups protested by the thousands against President Pervez Musharraf for his high-handedness in the dismissal of the Supreme Court justices.

Lest we hastily romanticize the bench, the Pakistan Supreme Court instead of being a neutral umpire and interpreter of the law had begun to give the impression of being a partisan group. The Court could have and should have played the role of a pacifier in an extremely violent environment.

Before you hastily dismiss Musharraf as a tin pot dictator, consider the initiatives he took to bring India and Pakistan closer for trade and commerce and resolve the Kashmir problem. Violence has abated in the valley. Between the peoples of India and Pakistan, there is a genuine feeling of goodwill and desire to live and work together. This is no small achievement, for which Musharraf deserves the most credit.

Since Musharraf assumed power eight years ago, Pakistan has registered remarkable economic growth, which has swelled and beefed up the Pakistani middle class. According to the World Bank, “After a decade of anemic economic growth, Pakistan’s economy has grown by more than 6.5 percent per year since 2003. While income inequality has increased somewhat, poverty has declined significantly….A wide-ranging program of economic reforms launched in 2000 – fiscal adjustment, privatization of energy, telecommunications, and production, banking sector reform and trade reform – have played a key role in the country’s economic recovery… Pakistan's economy has shown great resilience in the face of the devastating earthquake, and future growth prospects for the economy are good.”

A growing and self-confident Pakistani middle class is clamoring for more political breathing space; but in any case the country is not mimicking China— Pakistan’s all-weather friend. The Pakistani middle class’s aspirations are closer to that of India than any other country, in spite of it being an Islamic country. A self-confident and stable Pakistan is in India’s national interest, as I said earlier in this column. As Stephen P. Cohen, a South Asian expert at the Brookings Institute said, India by being India and leaving Pakistan alone can help Pakistan become a better Pakistan.

So don’t cry for Pakistan. Not yet.

Unlike most other Muslim countries, Pakistan is no stranger to freedom and democracy. It has a vibrant press; a free and bold, albeit erratic, judiciary; and an intellectual class that you find nowhere else in the Muslim world except perhaps in Turkey. Its scientific community, which developed nuclear weaponry with the help of China, cannot be brushed aside. Pakistan has brainpower waiting to be tapped. It is unfortunate that Pakistan is caught up between democratic aspirations at the top and religious obtuseness at the bottom.

Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in The Baltimore Sun that the United States “must move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed.” Instead of depending upon the questionable political strength and commitment of Musharraf alone for war against terrorism, the United States should be reaching out to a wide variety of constituencies in Pakistan including the media, universities, businesses, non-profit organizations, tribal leaders and intelligence communities. I agree. Not only that, the United States should open up its duty free portals to Pakistani manufacturers. A nation that trades cannot afford to hate others.

It is true that Musharraf has not been to make a total break from the forces that have supported him in his hold on power and hence his inability to wipe out terrorism totally. Musharraf’s deal with tribal leaders relinquishing sovereign authority over the tribal territory did not turn out to be a wise political move. Perhaps it was done out of helplessness. Pakistan has become a safe haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The question is: If Musharraf has not been able to exercise full control over the forces operating in the divided country, what can be done? Would a civilian government headed by Benazir Bhutto or anybody else, if it were possible to hold free elections, be able to control the raging militancy in Swat, Waziristan, and not least, in the hearts and minds of many Pakistanis? Bhutto can launch a thousand ships against Musharraf, but what will she do against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Nonetheless, Benazir Bhutto symbolizes a future that must happen in Pakistan one day.

(ND Batra, who teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, is the author of Digital Freedom and is working on a new book, This is the America Way)

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Digital natives collaborating

Digital natives collaborating

From The Statesman

ND Batra

The challenge for the academia lies in tapping and pooling the brainpower within academic units as well as outside and creating an environment of synergy and enthusiasm for collaboration. That is how you develop what is called “swarming intelligence.”

As it has been often said, the digital age is breaking walls and melding previously divergent communities, for example, of critics and practitioners; of message creators and audiences; of teachers and learners. The virtual and the physical are crisscrossing and becoming co-extensive parallel universes.

The Second Life, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook generation is developing its sensibilities in virtual environments characterised by new assumptions based on heterarchy, interactivity, and intellectual engagement, what MIT’s Henry Jenkins describes as “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.”

This kind of heterarchical culture generates “opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship.” The cyber generation that is descending upon campuses requires skills that enable it to be competitive in a global environment where collaborative teamwork, spread across time-zones and continents, is becoming a necessity.

Fortunately, thanks to computer and video games, many kids are already coming to colleges equipped with some of the skills suggested by Jenkins; for example: “the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving; the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery; the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes; the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content; the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details; the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities; the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal; the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources; the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities; the ability to search for, synthesise, and disseminate information; the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.”
And there is much more to come.
To educate the cyber generation, the campus grey eminence needs to develop tools for collaborative environment in which students and teachers can work as co-workers and performers. For a university an important step in building collaboration for innovation is to develop its own Wiki, where people can collaborate, build, edit, and correct each other. The idea of Wiki is based on the principle of redundancy and the system’s self-correcting behaviour, which makes it possible for knowledge and creativity to emerge through continuous emendation, additions and revisions. Andrew P McAffee calls it (Sloan Management Review) as “The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.”

Convergence and emergence shape our lives today.

I believe that in an innovation and knowledge-driven world collaboration is imperative, though most of us are obsessed with lone geniuses like Albert Einstein transforming space-time dimensions into abstract mathematical equations; Ludwig van Beethoven composing and conducting the orchestra and chorus in the premiere of his Ninth Symphony that he could not hear; or John Milton, blind and old, dictating Paradise Lost to his daughter. It is not that the proverbial genius will ever vanish; rather the most important point in the age of social networking and collaborative code-making is that academically disparate people now have the means, for example, as mentioned earlier, a constantly evolving digital platform like Wiki, to work together and enhance the creation of knowledge and scholarship.

Consider the novel Click, which was collaboratively created under the editorial oversight of Arthur Levine by ten authors each contributing a chapter to a mystery surrounding “a camera, some photographs and box with seven shells.” The collaboration took place sequentially, each author’s contribution built upon the previous one, story upon story that has hung together as a wholesome plot. But the novel could have been created in Wiki also, probably with better results, tapping into the collective wisdom and interactivity of the group instead of each author waiting for his or her turn to write a chapter.

Collaboration in the arts and humanities is not something new. In televisions, as I mentioned in one of my earlier books, The Hour of Television, creativity is normally negotiated and bargained, where, in fact, the collective is the creator and programs emerge from a generative system rather than as an act of individual creation. Think of "Guiding Light", a programme that originated as a radio soap opera (25 January 1937) and was transferred to television (30 June 1952) and has been continuing since then - an example of generative collaborative creativity across two generations.

From Bollywood to Hollywood, collaboration is of the essence.

In the digital age, poor communication occurs because of structural and bureaucratic potholes and because people who have expertise in one field fail to appreciate new ideas in others and shut them out.

Sometime collaboration fails because it is limited to very few people in partnering academic centres, so if some key expert quits, the network withers away. Redundancy, the basis of decentralised networking, is not only essential for continuous creativity but also acts as an antidote to the arrogance of expert power.
In the digital age, chain of commands is an anathema.
The challenge is how to integrate creative activities and unique knowledge as effectively as global supply chains integrate labour, raw materials, finance, and marketing. In the world of globalised business, creative work flows in loops across people, building on shared brainpower, each knowledge hub validating and adding value to the work done by the other, thus, hastening testing, and shaping up and perfecting the final project that might have begun in Kolkata but ends up in Silicon Valley.

In cyberspace, disciplinary zones need not become impenetrable barriers but in order to turn them into an asset it is necessary to develop a user-friendly IT system that provides reliable and uniform services, which can be adapted to ever increasing complex environment across academic disciplines, divisions, and schools.

The task henceforth is to create a system that is capable of accessing available sources of knowledge and mining all modes of human expression, whether audio, video, pictorial, or textual - a protocol that transcends cultural and disciplinary barriers. IT system should be capable of customizing knowledge as per individual or group needs.
For example, consider Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I have been using to dictate my weekly column for The Statesman and update my blog, CorporatePower. In the beginning, the programme would ask me to read the given text passages over and over again, and as I did, the system began to learn my speech rhythm, cadence and accent (Indian-American), and eventually it adapted itself to my needs. The more I use it, the more it learns and more intelligent it becomes. Dragon Naturally Speaking was not created for people like me but for busy corporate executives. The important point is that systems can be created that listen to us and evolve to meet our scholarly, scientific, humanistic, and artistic needs.

And that is a blessing of the digital age, which digital natives are exploring as they build collaborative platforms across cultures from Bangalore to Boston, from IIT to MIT.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is now working on a new book, This is the American Way.)