- Person
- Stanley Cohen
- Lived
- b. 1935
- Field
- Genetics
- From
- American
The story
Stanley Cohen's discoveries helped create the biotechnology industry in the United States, and he also took an active part in spreading the field abroad, particularly in Taiwan.
Taiwan's interest in high technology owed much to Li Kwoh-ting, the economist and minister often called the father of Taiwan's economic miracle. Li served as economics minister from 1965 to 1969 and finance minister from 1969 to 1976, and afterwards, as a minister without portfolio, he promoted science and technology. He is credited with helping turn Taiwan from a farming economy into one of the world's leading producers of information technology. Stanford University named four professorships after him, in economic development, engineering, medicine and Chinese culture. Since 1993 Cohen has held the one in medicine, as the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the School of Medicine.
According to the biographical note accompanying his papers at the National Library of Medicine, Cohen was a primary figure in establishing collaborative research with the Institute of Molecular Biology in Taipei and in helping to establish a biotechnology industry in Taiwan. He spent a sabbatical year at National Taiwan University working to set up a joint biotechnology research venture between Stanford and the university, a project documented in his papers from 1991 to 1999, including files on the students who worked in the programme. His papers also show that he regularly attended meetings of Taiwan's Institute of Molecular Biology, as well as of Singapore's Economic Development Board.
The connection reflected a broader pattern in his career. Cohen remained an academic researcher rather than founding a company, but he consulted for biotechnology firms and worked to see the tools he had helped invent put to use for public benefit. He also campaigned for public understanding of science, giving a lecture called Fear of Knowledge about the importance of sharing scientific knowledge rather than fearing it.
His work in Asia helped carry recombinant DNA methods, and the habits of research that went with them, to scientists far from Stanford, as part of the worldwide spread of the techniques he and Herbert Boyer first demonstrated.
Why it matters
Cohen's international work helped extend the benefits of recombinant DNA technology beyond the United States, supporting scientific development in Asia.
About Stanley Cohen
Stanford geneticist who, with Herbert Boyer, invented recombinant DNA cloning in 1973, the technique that launched genetic engineering and the biotechnology industry.
More about Stanley Cohen
- Stanley Cohen co-invented genetic engineeringIn 1973 Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer first moved genes between organisms, inventing recombinant DNA, the technique behind human insulin and the biotechnology industry.
- Stanley Cohen investigated how bacteria resist antibioticsStanley Cohen's genetic engineering grew out of a medical question: how bacteria share genes that make them resistant to antibiotics.
- Stanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101 carried the first clonesStanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101, cut at a single site by Boyer's enzyme and carrying a tetracycline-resistance gene, became the vehicle for the first DNA cloning experiments in 1973.
- Stanley Cohen built tools to watch genes at workAfter inventing DNA cloning, Stanley Cohen developed techniques that use reporter genes to follow how genes behave in the cells of animals and other complex organisms.
- Stanley Cohen backed a safety pause on gene splicingStanley Cohen signed the 1974 letter calling for a voluntary pause on some recombinant DNA experiments until their risks could be assessed, and took part in the 1975 Asilomar conference.
- Stanley Cohen taught bacteria to take up new DNAIn 1972 Stanley Cohen’s Stanford lab showed that a calcium chloride treatment lets E. coli take up plasmid DNA and pass it on to their offspring.
- Stanley Cohen's patent was licensed to hundreds of firmsThe Cohen–Boyer recombinant DNA patents were licensed non-exclusively, for moderate fees, to 478 companies, spreading gene cloning across the biotechnology industry.
Sources
- Stanley N. Cohen Papers, biographical note National Library of Medicine
- Li Kwoh-ting Wikipedia
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