Aaron Bouchie,
Natalie DeWitt, Emma
Dorey, Michael Francisco
, John Hodgson, Andrew Marshall
& Meeghan Sinclair
2000 was a year in which genomics became a household word, record
amounts of money flowed into biotechnology, share prices rose to giddy new
heights, GM crops encountered renewed opposition and prejudice, and FrankenTony
ran for office in the United States. Once again, we have selected a few of
the major events, highlights, and lowlights from the past year for inclusion
in our annual quiz. Answers are provided on opposite page.
1. Getting it together. Test your memory of events in mergers and acquisitions:
(a) What business did Celltech (Leatherhead, UK) get from Medeva (Leatherhead,
UK) and then pass on to PowderJect Pharmaceuticals (Oxford, UK) before it
got people hopping mad in October?
(b) Abgenix (Fremont, CA) and Aurora Biosciences (San Diego, CA) each acquired
two companies in 2000. Which and when?
2. Money raised. 2000 was a bumper year for biotechnology. Can you match
the money (in $ millions) to the companies for venture capital, IPOs, and
secondary offerings?
3. Research notes. Test your knowledge of these few selected highlights
of biotechnology research from the past year.
(a) Which of the following molecules were optimized using DNA shuffling
technology in the past year: carotenoids, viral envelopes, T-cell receptors,
or insulin?
(b) Provitamin A deficiency is the leading preventable cause of blindness
around the world. Which two plant foods were engineered to contain high levels
of provitamin A in 2000?
(c) What apparently gets shorter in cloned sheep, but longer in cloned
cattle?
(d) Who are Millie, Carrel, Christa, Alexis, and Dotcom?
(e) Patients with which of the following diseases appeared to respond favorably
to gene therapy last year: Beta thalassemia, Parkinson's disease, hemophilia,
or X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1).
4. CEO bonding. Why were the CEOs of Medarex (Princeton, NJ), which
raised $358.8 million in a secondary offering in March, and GenMabs A/S (Copenhagen,
Denmark), which raised $181.7 in an October IPO, quick to offer each other
congratulations?
5. GM gibberish. Controversy over the safety and labeling of GM foods
continued. Can you answer the following?
(a) For what biotechnology-related pastime would you dress in a set of
old clothes and rubber rainwear stolen from Wal-Mart, and carry duct tape
and a sharp knife?
(b) Granada Food Services refused to supply food containing GM ingredients
to its customers. For which biotechnology company do they provide catering?
(c) What type of GM plant was labeled "almost impossible to kill"
by the UK Guardian newspaper in August?
6. Biotech in the courtroom. Judge your knowledge of biotechnology litigation.
(a) Two companies skirmished in the courts in early November over a patent
covering the manufacture of gene chips. Can you name them?
(b) Which three companies went to court in 2000 over five patents centering
on erythropoietin (EPO) and its manufacture?
(c) What company filed an appeal in December in the United Kingdom concerning
the intellectual property on nanochip technology?
(d) Which technology was the subject of patent infringement lawsuits filed
in May and October by Lexicon Genetics (Woodlands, TX) against Deltagen (Menlo
Park, CA).
7. Feet in both camps. Match the company with the academic:
Eric S. Lamber DNA Sciences (Mountain View, CA)
Walter Gilbert Maxygen (Redwood City, CA)
Frances Arnold Inpharmatica (London, UK)
Sir Mark Richmond Transkaryotic Therapies (Cambridge, MA)
James Watson ACLARA BioSciences (Mountain View, CA)
Janet Thornton OSI Pharmaceuticals (Uniondale, NY)
8. Every time I open my mouth . . . Put a name to the quote:
(a) "Genetic engineering represents nothing less than a going-out-of-business
sale on genetic diversity . . . . We need a dramatic shift away from the industry-dominated
laissez-faire nonregulation of GMOs."
(b) "You should not take at face value any claim by any group for
at least two years that says 'we have finished sequencing a human genome sequence.'
It will not be true."
(c) "We had real leadership . . . . We had . . . faith in this science
when others were dubious, and it all seemed to be working. So we painted a
big bull's-eye on our chest, and we went over the top of the hill."
(d) "The stakes [for gene therapy] are incredibly high. For once,
I may say what I really think: I hope to God this works."
(e) "He's Hitler. This should not be Munich. . .Are you going to
be Churchill or Chamberlain?"
9. What's in a name? Which company's name
(a) is taken from a black basalt stone carved with inscriptions that provide
a link to understanding?
(b) is adapted from the Greek word for "in hand"?
(c) among other things, means a teaching of the Western religious sect
of Rosicrucians that believes we have the power of initiative over our destiny?
(d) means the Greek goddess of dawn?
10. Regulatory oversights. Government agencies continued to struggle
with Genetically Modified foods. Which agencies were involved in the following
incidents?
(a) The exclusion of genetically modified products from rules defining
organic food in March
(b) The refusal of a full-scale release permit to Novartis' (Basel, Switzerland)
seeds for Bt maize, ignoring the recommendations of a safety advisory
body.
11. In-the-can biotech. What record do former ChromaXome executive Michael
Dickman and BioCryst executive Harry Snyder share?
12. Intellectual perspicuity. In August, which Seattle-based company
chose the strategy of simply making 5,570 proprietary genes of Pseudomonas
aeruginosa available over the Internet because it could not afford the
$1.6 million to register all of them at the US patent office?
