Date: 19/03/2003
Source: Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
Title: Ngubane: Opening of Human Genome and Africa Conference
SPEECH DELIVERED BY DR BS NGUBANE, MINISTER OF ARTS, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AT THE OPENING OF THE HUMAN GENOME AND AFRICA CONFERENCE, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, 19 March 2003
Distinguished guests, from beyond our borders and from South Africa, welcome to this important conference on the Human Genome and Africa. That is the short title for Professor Wilmot James' masterpiece title The Conference on the Historical, Ethical and Legal, Educational, Biomedical and Biotechnological Implications of the Human Genome Project for Research and Development in Africa. I will use the short title, I am sure you will understand.
The long title does, however, bring out the fact that the completion of the Human Genome by two large groups in 2001, reported simultaneously in two thick issues of Nature and Science, will change our world forever, and this Conference is designed to answer this question: Will Africa also change as part of that world, and will it change for the better?
The elucidation of the Human Genome is a watershed scientific achievement of the human mind and of human skill. Coming almost precisely at the beginning of the 21st century, it clearly provides a decisive point of departure for a new era of human history. But it begs the question: What kind of new era? Will our collective 'bite into the apple of knowledge' in our far-from-perfect paradise actually promote a better life for all (or most) of the poor, the sick and the dispossessed? Will it help us cast out the demons of infectious disease, cancer, and body degeneration caused by injurious lifestyles and by advancing age? Will it help us to understand ourselves, our essential human nature and the way we react and adapt to environmental conditions? Or will the dark ghosts of genetic determinism and the evil use of expert knowledge loom ever larger across our crowded and still-fractious world?
This Conference and its five constituent Workshops will provide many pointers to these deep questions, perhaps amongst the most challenging of our time.
We are extremely fortunate that so many distinguished scientists have accepted invitations to attend and participate in this Conference in South Africa. It is gratifying that many South Africans will also speak in the plenary and split sessions, because we seek to develop the capacity, here on our home soil and in Africa, to address the problems that beset us and to be partners rather than dependants in this great enterprise.
As the Minister responsible for both Arts and Culture, on the one hand, and Science and Technology, on the other, I have a keen interest in the success of this conference. I have obtained the support of the Cabinet for a new Research and Development Strategy for South Africa. This proposes that the National Science and Technology Missions of the apartheid government of the 1970s and 1980s (defence and energy self-sufficiency) be replaced by five new ones.
These new missions are all either directly or indirectly related to the theme of this Conference: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is directly involved in the burgeoning area of Bio-informatics; Biotechnology is directly involved in the search for useful products in health, agriculture and an industry. Indirectly, the advancement of manufacturing technologies, beneficiation of indigenous resources and the alleviation of poverty are all likely to be dependent on biological insights and the new ways of thinking about things that will be characteristic of the coming 'Century of Biology.'
The research and development strategy of the Government requires joint, concerted action by all the Ministers and their related "delivery vehicles" (particularly the Science Councils) to achieve the best results from the researchers available. We cannot afford independent silos to be set up, nor can egos and personal agendas prevent us from establishing the kinds of centres of excellence and capacity-building programmes that are needed to enable us to emulate the performance of Brazil, India and China in the new biological areas.
Smarter use of funds will be as effective, or more so, than simply providing new money for independent ventures (which is obviously also necessary and important). Universities and Technikons must concentrate their research and efforts on the advancement of molecular biology, including expansion of postgraduate training and the creation of a flourishing post-doctoral system, and must work with industry to foster a research and employment environment that pulls in talented young people to rewarding careers. The Workshop at this conference on "Biotechnology and Life Sustainability" will draw together, across the various fault lines of ideas, disciplines, organisations and policy frameworks, the main points of departure for the option of a better life for all from the wise application of genomic knowledge and technology.
The threat of a second 'divide' (after the 'digital divide'), increasingly separating the haves from the have-nots, looms in genomic studies and technologies. We in the developing world have a strong incentive to be active rather than passive participants in these new areas of science and technology. We have the infectious diseases and agricultural pests right here, and do not need to see them in late-night documentary broadcasts to spur us on to the good fight. We can take the laboratory into the field and back, but we must have the skills and the equipment to do it, obviously in productive partnership with the scientists achieving so much elsewhere.
You all know that the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a promising joint plan to harness the continent's talent and resources. Genomics-based biotechnology and biomedicine are prominent themes in this programme of action; they need the support of all the governments concerned. We must lay some of the foundations for that at this conference at the Wellcome Trust- supported Bio-Medical Research Workshop and the Pathogen Bio-informatics workshop that follows, to be held at the South African National Bio-informatics Institute (SANBI) at the University of the Western Cape next week.
The Human Genome is a product of evolution, as are the disease-causing agents (pathogens) that make our lives uncomfortable or even bring them to an end: these agents have in fact co-evolved with us. We know that harmless fellow travellers can be converted into mass killers through genetic change. The pathogens have learnt to minimise our defences or evade them during long period of co-evolution, and even during the dramatically shortened time course of an infection in a single individual.
We have intensified this 'arms race' with our drugs and vaccines, but the pathogens simply respond by sharpening their own mechanisms of evasion: treatment-resistant pathogens are a real threat to humankind. Genomics present us with an opportunity to unmask the resistance mechanisms fast enough to stay ahead. The Workshop on "Pathogen Genomics and Infectious Diseases in Africa" that forms a substantial part of this Conference will allow us to assess the validity of these assumptions in relation to the infectious agents that plague this country and this continent.
Genomics is not value-free, nor does it come without serious ethical and legal issues and policy challenges in key areas such as health and food security. The theory and practice of intellectual property must come to grips with the puzzling situations created by genes, genomes and their 'hosts', living creatures that have often not existed before. Governments will have to be able to understand the arguments in order to steer a sensible course around and between dangers and obstacles to progress, and enable the creation of mechanisms by which ethical standards of sound research are observed; the benefits of the research revert to the populations of Africa; genetic privacy protected and informed consent, as specified in our Constitution, observed.
One of the striking things about genomics is that it goes very far to show that evolution is not a 'theory' but the only basis for explaining the genomes of all living beings, and the biological phenomena associated with them. How can we (in South Africa) be players in this field if our children are still not taught that the vast complexity and diversity of living things has a powerful, understandable and usable conceptual basis?
Genomics is a potent archaeological and therefore historical tool. It can tell us much about the migrations of our ancestors, accompanying the evidence brought together from fossils, languages and cultures. The ways that genomics will further enrich our understanding of the origins of humanity are exciting, the more so as we are custodians of the world heritage site at Sterkfontein in Gauteng, a Cradle of Humankind.
The long title for the Conference includes many of the elements of the device that analysts abbreviate as 'STEEPV', namely social, technological, economic, environmental, and political and values. The Conference as structured covers all these factors but elides the economic. It is certain however that economic considerations will loom large in the evolution of the biotechnology industries be these in food production, pharmaceuticals or what some term 'pharming' (with ph, not f as the lead character). This is why the broad discussions, eclectic to some, are so important. Scientists alone cannot deal with such complexity.
Indeed it is unpredictable what the outcome of the interaction among various fields of study will be. Japan was an early leader in this kind of thinking when machines and electronics were combined into mechatronics; today we look at other convergences: genomics with advanced analysis gives us genotyping. Genomics with cognitive computing and smart materials leads to bio-interactive materials. An endless frontier indeed.
This is a unique conference with a diverse assembly of speakers and participants. One of our leading scientists here present was heard to remark that 'it takes a visionary to bring such eclecticism into being.' With this I must concur. Richard Dawkins in his famous book The Blind Watchmaker has a wonderful piece on willow trees. 'It is raining DNA outside', he writes. 'It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programmes.' Here I believe it is going to rain ideas.
I welcome you to this marketplace of ideas and new insights. I hope you will enjoy and benefit much from the Conference during the next 3 days, and particularly hope that our visitors will benefit from exposure to our peoples with their pre-occupation for nation-building. My Department is delighted to be a sponsor of this Conference and I wish you the best of deliberations.
Thank you!
Issued by Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
19 March 2003
Source: Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
Title: Ngubane: Opening of Human Genome and Africa Conference
SPEECH DELIVERED BY DR BS NGUBANE, MINISTER OF ARTS, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AT THE OPENING OF THE HUMAN GENOME AND AFRICA CONFERENCE, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, 19 March 2003
Distinguished guests, from beyond our borders and from South Africa, welcome to this important conference on the Human Genome and Africa. That is the short title for Professor Wilmot James' masterpiece title The Conference on the Historical, Ethical and Legal, Educational, Biomedical and Biotechnological Implications of the Human Genome Project for Research and Development in Africa. I will use the short title, I am sure you will understand.
The long title does, however, bring out the fact that the completion of the Human Genome by two large groups in 2001, reported simultaneously in two thick issues of Nature and Science, will change our world forever, and this Conference is designed to answer this question: Will Africa also change as part of that world, and will it change for the better?
The elucidation of the Human Genome is a watershed scientific achievement of the human mind and of human skill. Coming almost precisely at the beginning of the 21st century, it clearly provides a decisive point of departure for a new era of human history. But it begs the question: What kind of new era? Will our collective 'bite into the apple of knowledge' in our far-from-perfect paradise actually promote a better life for all (or most) of the poor, the sick and the dispossessed? Will it help us cast out the demons of infectious disease, cancer, and body degeneration caused by injurious lifestyles and by advancing age? Will it help us to understand ourselves, our essential human nature and the way we react and adapt to environmental conditions? Or will the dark ghosts of genetic determinism and the evil use of expert knowledge loom ever larger across our crowded and still-fractious world?
This Conference and its five constituent Workshops will provide many pointers to these deep questions, perhaps amongst the most challenging of our time.
We are extremely fortunate that so many distinguished scientists have accepted invitations to attend and participate in this Conference in South Africa. It is gratifying that many South Africans will also speak in the plenary and split sessions, because we seek to develop the capacity, here on our home soil and in Africa, to address the problems that beset us and to be partners rather than dependants in this great enterprise.
As the Minister responsible for both Arts and Culture, on the one hand, and Science and Technology, on the other, I have a keen interest in the success of this conference. I have obtained the support of the Cabinet for a new Research and Development Strategy for South Africa. This proposes that the National Science and Technology Missions of the apartheid government of the 1970s and 1980s (defence and energy self-sufficiency) be replaced by five new ones.
These new missions are all either directly or indirectly related to the theme of this Conference: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is directly involved in the burgeoning area of Bio-informatics; Biotechnology is directly involved in the search for useful products in health, agriculture and an industry. Indirectly, the advancement of manufacturing technologies, beneficiation of indigenous resources and the alleviation of poverty are all likely to be dependent on biological insights and the new ways of thinking about things that will be characteristic of the coming 'Century of Biology.'
The research and development strategy of the Government requires joint, concerted action by all the Ministers and their related "delivery vehicles" (particularly the Science Councils) to achieve the best results from the researchers available. We cannot afford independent silos to be set up, nor can egos and personal agendas prevent us from establishing the kinds of centres of excellence and capacity-building programmes that are needed to enable us to emulate the performance of Brazil, India and China in the new biological areas.
Smarter use of funds will be as effective, or more so, than simply providing new money for independent ventures (which is obviously also necessary and important). Universities and Technikons must concentrate their research and efforts on the advancement of molecular biology, including expansion of postgraduate training and the creation of a flourishing post-doctoral system, and must work with industry to foster a research and employment environment that pulls in talented young people to rewarding careers. The Workshop at this conference on "Biotechnology and Life Sustainability" will draw together, across the various fault lines of ideas, disciplines, organisations and policy frameworks, the main points of departure for the option of a better life for all from the wise application of genomic knowledge and technology.
The threat of a second 'divide' (after the 'digital divide'), increasingly separating the haves from the have-nots, looms in genomic studies and technologies. We in the developing world have a strong incentive to be active rather than passive participants in these new areas of science and technology. We have the infectious diseases and agricultural pests right here, and do not need to see them in late-night documentary broadcasts to spur us on to the good fight. We can take the laboratory into the field and back, but we must have the skills and the equipment to do it, obviously in productive partnership with the scientists achieving so much elsewhere.
You all know that the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a promising joint plan to harness the continent's talent and resources. Genomics-based biotechnology and biomedicine are prominent themes in this programme of action; they need the support of all the governments concerned. We must lay some of the foundations for that at this conference at the Wellcome Trust- supported Bio-Medical Research Workshop and the Pathogen Bio-informatics workshop that follows, to be held at the South African National Bio-informatics Institute (SANBI) at the University of the Western Cape next week.
The Human Genome is a product of evolution, as are the disease-causing agents (pathogens) that make our lives uncomfortable or even bring them to an end: these agents have in fact co-evolved with us. We know that harmless fellow travellers can be converted into mass killers through genetic change. The pathogens have learnt to minimise our defences or evade them during long period of co-evolution, and even during the dramatically shortened time course of an infection in a single individual.
We have intensified this 'arms race' with our drugs and vaccines, but the pathogens simply respond by sharpening their own mechanisms of evasion: treatment-resistant pathogens are a real threat to humankind. Genomics present us with an opportunity to unmask the resistance mechanisms fast enough to stay ahead. The Workshop on "Pathogen Genomics and Infectious Diseases in Africa" that forms a substantial part of this Conference will allow us to assess the validity of these assumptions in relation to the infectious agents that plague this country and this continent.
Genomics is not value-free, nor does it come without serious ethical and legal issues and policy challenges in key areas such as health and food security. The theory and practice of intellectual property must come to grips with the puzzling situations created by genes, genomes and their 'hosts', living creatures that have often not existed before. Governments will have to be able to understand the arguments in order to steer a sensible course around and between dangers and obstacles to progress, and enable the creation of mechanisms by which ethical standards of sound research are observed; the benefits of the research revert to the populations of Africa; genetic privacy protected and informed consent, as specified in our Constitution, observed.
One of the striking things about genomics is that it goes very far to show that evolution is not a 'theory' but the only basis for explaining the genomes of all living beings, and the biological phenomena associated with them. How can we (in South Africa) be players in this field if our children are still not taught that the vast complexity and diversity of living things has a powerful, understandable and usable conceptual basis?
Genomics is a potent archaeological and therefore historical tool. It can tell us much about the migrations of our ancestors, accompanying the evidence brought together from fossils, languages and cultures. The ways that genomics will further enrich our understanding of the origins of humanity are exciting, the more so as we are custodians of the world heritage site at Sterkfontein in Gauteng, a Cradle of Humankind.
The long title for the Conference includes many of the elements of the device that analysts abbreviate as 'STEEPV', namely social, technological, economic, environmental, and political and values. The Conference as structured covers all these factors but elides the economic. It is certain however that economic considerations will loom large in the evolution of the biotechnology industries be these in food production, pharmaceuticals or what some term 'pharming' (with ph, not f as the lead character). This is why the broad discussions, eclectic to some, are so important. Scientists alone cannot deal with such complexity.
Indeed it is unpredictable what the outcome of the interaction among various fields of study will be. Japan was an early leader in this kind of thinking when machines and electronics were combined into mechatronics; today we look at other convergences: genomics with advanced analysis gives us genotyping. Genomics with cognitive computing and smart materials leads to bio-interactive materials. An endless frontier indeed.
This is a unique conference with a diverse assembly of speakers and participants. One of our leading scientists here present was heard to remark that 'it takes a visionary to bring such eclecticism into being.' With this I must concur. Richard Dawkins in his famous book The Blind Watchmaker has a wonderful piece on willow trees. 'It is raining DNA outside', he writes. 'It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programmes.' Here I believe it is going to rain ideas.
I welcome you to this marketplace of ideas and new insights. I hope you will enjoy and benefit much from the Conference during the next 3 days, and particularly hope that our visitors will benefit from exposure to our peoples with their pre-occupation for nation-building. My Department is delighted to be a sponsor of this Conference and I wish you the best of deliberations.
Thank you!
Issued by Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
19 March 2003
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