Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
13
Epilogue
When someone says, 'It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing,' it's
the money.
Kin Hubbard
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government)
to an inventor or an assignee thereof for a limited period of time in exchange
for the public disclosure of an invention so that humanity can benefit from it.
Humanity would not have fared well had it not been for its inventive nature.
From the wheel to wheelbarrow, from microscopy to recombinant engineer-
ing, inventions have continued to surprise people of their own ability. The
most difficult challenge an invention faces is not in demonstrating its useful-
ness; it is in making others believe that it indeed is good for them. Inventions
are viewed as invasive, likely to disrupt a comfort zone, and of little value in
the minds of those who are rigid-minded, as most of humanity is. The great
inventor Benjamin Franklin was bounced around by his friends as an eccen-
tric; the Wrights had great difficulty selling their idea; and Gregor Mendel's
discovery of basic genetic tendencies in his research on peas was overlooked
for 50 years.
Long ago, Plato raised a concern in his
Phaedrus
that is familiar in our
era: new technology will undermine traditional literacy. Plato (quoting
Socrates) expressed the fear that the emerging technology of writing would
destroy the rich oral literature that was central to his culture. Writing would
reduce the need for memory and attentive listening; it would give learners
the appearance of wisdom by aiding rapid recall of information and facts
without requiring internalization of such wisdom. This sort of “superficial”
learner would inevitably be less literate. It turned out Plato was right only in
part: although writing did change the meaning of literacy, it enabled incred-
ible advancements in knowledge.
The disposable technology of today was only a tinkertoy a couple of
decades ago. In an industry flushed with cash and used in mega projects,
a flexible bag for manufacturing drugs just did not fit the picture well. Still
today, neither the FDA nor the EMEA have any product that was manufac-
tured in a disposable bioreactor. Until such time that this taboo is shattered,
there shall remain many critics of the disposable bioprocessing systems.
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