The power of knowledge, the role of science

Transcription

1 The power of knowledge, the role of science Philippe Desmeth President of the World Federation for Culture Collections Belgian Coordinated Collections of Micro-organisms Belgian Science Policy Office, avenue Louise, Brussels, Belgium Pengetahuan adalah kekuatan Sejak lebih dari lima ratus tahun, telah dibuktikan bahwa keberhasilan suatu bangsa ditentukan antara lain oleh kemampuan negara untuk memperoleh pengetahuan dan keterampilan teknis, lalu mengubahnya menjadi kekuatan dan kemakmuran 1. Kemakmuran ekonomi dan kemajuan sosial sebagian di antaranya didasarkan pada kapasitas lembaga-lembaga negara dan praktik-praktik sosial dalam memperoleh, mengolah dan memanfaatkan informasi untuk pengembangan teknologi yang berkesinambungan. Ini merupakan cara untuk memfasilitasi proses inovasi, yaitu proses yang dimulai dari ide sampai menghasilkan solusi (from idea to solutions) 2. Lembaga ilmiah baik publik atau swasta berperan dalam perolehan data melalui penelitian, analisis dan pemanfaatannya untuk menghasilkan dampak (outcome) sosial-ekonomi yang berkelanjutan. Sejak dua puluh tahun lalu, kebutuhan mutlak untuk dapat tumbuh berkesinambungan telah disorot dalam komitmen-komitmen internasional, di antaranya Konvensi mengenai Keanekaragaman Hayati (Convention on Biological Diversity). Selama dua dekade terakhir, pemahaman mengenai hukum alam dan kajian hubungan antara manusia dan biosfer telah menghasilkan aliran informasi yang terus meningkat dan menjadi dasar pijakan pembangunan sosial-ekonomi. Strategi yang efektif untuk memperoleh pengetahuan dan menggunakannya secara bijaksana bagi generasi sekarang dan masa depan harus bersama-sama dilakukan pada tingkat nasional maupun internasional. Ilmu pengetahuan lebih dari sekedar sumber pengetahuan, namun ilmu pengetahuan juga merupakan platform pertukaran, cara untuk berbagi manfaat dan cara untuk menuju kesejahteraan sosial-ekonomi. Indonesia, sebagai negara megadiversitas tidak hanya mementingkan perlindungan keanekaragaman hayati dan masyarakat, tetapi juga layak mendapat posisi yang signifikan dalam komunitas ilmiah. Saya yakin bahwa Indonesia akan mencapai keunggulan dalam semua bidang ilmiah, melalui investasi dalam pendidikan ilmiah dan prasarana ilmiah, serta melalui pengembangan insentif hukum dan insentif ekonomi seperti yang disebutkan dalam Deklarasi Cancun 12. Dalam bidang keilmuwan mikrobiologi, Koleksi Mikroorganisme memiliki tradisi panjang di Indonesia dan memiliki tokohtokoh penting seperti Dr. Susono Saono dari LIPI atau Prof. Indrawati Gandjar dari Universitas Indonesia, serta generasi baru yang mengikuti jalan para ahli ini. Hal ini dapat diyakini dengan aktifnya jaringan koleksi mikroorganisme di Indonesia dan terbangunnya infrastruktur yang diperlukan. KIPNAS, Jakarta, October 8,

2 Knowledge is power Since more than five hundred years the success of nations has been determined inter aliaby a country s ability to acquire knowledge and technical skill and transform them into strength and prosperity 1. Economic grow and social progress is partly based on the capacities of the institutions of a country and its social practices for acquiring, processing and exploiting the information to develop sustainable technology. It is finding ways to facilitate the innovation process, from ideas to solutions 2. Scientific institutions, whether public or private, have a role to play in generating data via upstream research, analyzing them and exploiting them to produce socio-economic outcomes in a sustainable way. The last twenty years the absolute need for sustainable grow has been highlighted by international commitments among which the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). During the last decades, understanding the nature's laws and studying the relationship between mankind and the biosphere has produced an ever increasing flow of information which was at the basis of downstream research, biotechnological development. Effective strategy to acquire knowledge and to wisely use it for the present and future generations must be jointly implemented at national and international level. Science is more than just a source of knowledge; it is also a platform of exchange, a way to share benefits and a way towards socioeconomic welfare. Cumulative research, from ideas to discoveries In 1676, Isaac Newton pointed the importance of cumulative research, writing "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is a good example of cumulative research. In 1944, Erwin Schrödinger wrote "What is Life?" 3 which contains a discussion of negative entropy and the concept of a complex molecule with the genetic code for living organisms. In his memoirs "DNA, the Secret of Life", James D. Watson explains that Schrödinger's book gave him the inspiration to research the gene. Similarly, Francis Crick, in his autobiographical book "What Mad Pursuit", describes how he was influenced by Schrödinger's speculations about how genetic information might be stored in an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds. The speculations of Schrödinger predicted the DNA double helix structure of DNA discovered in 1953 by Watson and Crick who based their findings on the observation made conjunctly with many colleagues, among which Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling and Maurice Wilkins. Understanding the code of life and the development of increasinglyfast and cost-efficient ways to decode its sequences has opened another era in Life Sciences. It has a direct impact in many aspects of society, from medical advances to legal applications, from curing diseases to identify criminals. KIPNAS, Jakarta, October 8,

3 Knowledge based bio-economy (KBBE), from discoveries to invention Knowledge based bio-economy can be concisely defined as transforming life sciences knowledge into new, sustainable, eco-efficient and competitive products 4. Knowledge based refers to the increasing amount of data related to biological material produced and processed by analytical tools, which themselves generate even more data and metadata to be managed and analyzed by powerful computational tools. The term bio-economy includes all economic sectors that produce, manage and exploit biological resources (agriculture, food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and other bio-based industries). Advanced biotechnology is breaking new ground in understanding microbial diversity and bioprocesses that could lead to valuable bio-products and bio-materials. Applying such new knowledge to the production and conversion of bio-resources can boost bio-economy and create new industries. In Europe, the EU Research and Innovation program "Horizon 2020" is the biggest ever with some 79 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020). It intends to catalyze more breakthroughs and discoveries by taking great ideas from the lab to the market, contributing to tackle major societal challenges. It is open to cooperation with scientists from all continents. Paving the road from biodiversity to bio-economy Besides appropriate funding and investments, the exploitation of knowledge to produce goods and services requires complementary and convergent measures: - efficient linkagebetween researchinstitutionsand cradlesof technologicalinnovation; - complementary investments in both public and private sectors; - contractsconducive topublic-private cooperation. For examplethe issue ofownership ofbiodiversityconstituents requires a more continuous, less static concept of property rights where the rights allocated to a particular biological samples may be shared among those involved in the innovation value chain 5 ; - laws creating economic and structural conditions supportive to research and innovation. Fair and equitable allotment of rights based on the actual contribution of individuals or groups to the conservation and the sustainable use of components of the biosphere will facilitate cooperation among the various actors in the socio-economic chain of production 6 ; - awareness of life sciences scientists towards the new paradigm governing the translation of upstream research outcomes into socio-economic services or products. Also in microbiology, the pattern of complementary distinctive Basic and Applied Sciences is replaced by a continuum of upstream and downstream researches producing flows of data and information handled via bioinformatics 7. In Knowledge Based Bio-Economy, the various players in the Research &Development flow are closely tangled in the interdisciplinary fabric of innovation. Microbial Collections, model of infrastructures underpinning cumulative research in bioeconomy Comprehensive and structured exploration of the biosphere implies access to numerous ecosystems and huge numbers of bio-specimens. Taxonomy gives scientists the necessary framework to correlate their various studies within a standardized framework and to make comparisons possible 8. KIPNAS, Jakarta, October 8,

4 These specimens of fundamental scientific importance must be conserved and provided with the highest level of reliability to ensure consistent research and knowledge build-up. Long term ex situ conservation of living microbial material and related data requires specializedinfrastructures called Culture Collections (CC). Their mission is to provide facilitated access to -technically and legally- fitfor-use microbiological resources of consistent quality with regard to the material itself as well as related data. CC are established all around the world and many of them are registered in the World Data Centre for Micro-organisms (WDCM) of the World Federation for Culture Collections(WFCC, see Culture Collections are now conceived as sources of all essentials for Research and Development in Life Sciences 9. They are not only "providers" of raw material; they are infrastructures supporting and accommodating scientific activitiesin Knowledge Base Bio-Economy. That requires, with adequate public and private funding, a permanent effort of the culture collections to improve their quality and reliability. Culture collections contribute to cumulative research in many ways. They are appropriately called living libraries. First, they preserve and distribute micro-organisms as living substratum for research, enabling multiple, complementary and reproducible research on characterized material that can be retrieved at any time. Secondly, they build extensive databases directly accessible to scientists as well as to search engines. They also develop powerful bioinformatics tools capable of automatized processing. Thirdly, CC are also source of expertise in different fields, including taxonomy, which is necessary to apprehend the microbial realm in a structured way. In addition to providing for microbial material and related data, they also provide for advices to support research policy and decision-making. Also optimal collaboration between the "providers" and the "users" of the raw material is necessary to produce valuable, exploitable research outcomes. Such collaborations are supported by the development of new norms, such as the draft ISO norm 276 on "Biobanks" which provides for common understanding of the processes of production of innovative products and services. Collection are also implementing proactively the Convention on Biological Diversityand the subsequent Nagoya Protocol via the MOSAICC code of conduct 10 and the TRUST initiative 11, proposing a system to achieve better and more easily the objectives of the Convention and the Protocol. Moreover, the World Data Center for Micro-organisms ofwfcchas built the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms(GCM) which provides for high quantity of reliable integrated data. First GCM connect the online catalogues of microbial material available in the WFCC collections and make them accessible via one portal. Then it connects these catalogues to various databases storing scientific, technical and administrative data to build one coherent data pool directly exploitable by scientists to draw information to foster innovation. The Global Catalogue program aims at standardizing the databases structure of the various CC, making them easily searchable and interoperable; getting hidden data exploitable. It covers small but distinctive collections in addition to comparatively large service collections. The Global Catalogue improves database interoperability, building a large uniform pool of more accessible source of data related to micro-organisms. The Global Catalogue is also a capacity building effort of the microbial collections community to serve the purposes of the Convention on Biological diversity, translating the three objectives of the CBD into actions. KIPNAS, Jakarta, October 8,

5 Indonesia, from mega-biodiversity to scientific excellence Indonesia, as mega-diverse country of primary importance for safeguarding biodiversity and human societies on earth deserves also anprominent place in the scientific community. I am confident that Indonesia will reach this status of scientific excellence in all fields through investment in scientific education and scientific infrastructures, as well as via the development of legal and economic incentives like mentioned in the Cancun Declaration 12. In the field of microbiology, Culture Collections have a long tradition in Indonesia and have their champions, like Dr. Susono Saono from LIPI or Prof. Indrawati Gandjar from University Indonesia, and many others who are following their steps. It is reassuring to see that the Indonesian network of collections is reviving and that the necessary infrastructures are set up. 1 Black, J. (2014). The Power of Knowledge.Yale University Press. 504 p. ISBN Reichman, J. Uhlir, P. Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2015).Governing Digitally Integrated Genetic Resources, Data, and Literature. Global Intellectual Property Strategies for a Redesigned Microbial Research Commons. 620 p. ISBN: Publication planned for: November Schrödinger, E. (1944) What is Life? Cambridge University Press. 194 pp. ISBN See New Perspectives on the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy, Conference Report, European Commission, Brussels, See also 5 Dedeurwaerdere, T Understanding ownership in the knowledge economy: the concept of the bundle of rights, in BCCM Newsletter, Edition 18. November Desmeth, P. et all. TRUST Transparent Users-Friendly System Of Transfer 7 Stokes, D.E. (1997). Pasteur's quadrant: basic science and technological innovation. The Brookings Institution, Washington, USA. ISBN Kämpfer, P. (2010) Certificates of deposit a key element of the Bacteriological Code and an indispensable prerequisite for comparative taxonomic research.report of a case of falsification and a reply to the Letter to the Editor by Tindall (2008) International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2010) 60 Editorial Biological Resource Centres Underpinning the future of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, 2001, OECD, Paris. OECD Best Practice Guidelines for BRC, 2007, OECD, Paris. WFCC Guidelines. 10 Micro-Organisms Sustainable use and Access regulation International Code of Conduct.MOSAICC is a voluntary Code of Conduct, a tool to support the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity at the microbial level, in accordance with other rules of international and national laws TRUST stands for TRansparent User-friendly System of Transfer. It aims at managing the incidence of the CBD and thenagoya Protocol on the scientific, technical and administrative activities of culture collections and, more generally, incorporating the Nagoya Protocol into the daily life of microbiologists Cancun Declaration of Like-Minded Megadiversity Countries.Sixth COP to the CBD Document UNEP/CBD/COP/6/INF/33 21 March 2002 KIPNAS, Jakarta, October 8,