BiologyToday Biotechnology& Bioengineering MauraC. Flannery DepartmentEditor The longerI teach,the moreimportant not consider energy use withoutinvesti- organismswe choose to live with-the words become to me, the more I become gating topics all the way from the struc- plants on the windowsill and the cat in aware of how words influence the way ture of the atom and the geology of oil the backyard-are also pieces of tech- Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/60/6/464/48694/4450522.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 we think. As biologists, we have come deposits to the chemistryof oil refining nology, because they serve very useful to use the words biotechnology and and the functioningof mitochondria. purposes: they bring beauty into our bioengineeringquite freely, often in ref- In TheAmericanHeritage Dictionary home, and companionshipas well. erence to genetic manipulations.I think (1992), bothengineering and technology both these words deserve more attention are defined in terms of science: technol- Engineering because mixing the human-made and ogy is the application of science to in- natural worlds, as these words do, has dustry and commerce, and engineering WhatI've been referringto here are many implications.I am particularlysen- is the means used in designing and cre- not the ordinaryuses of the words bio- sitive to these words because I've been ating these applications.While both are technology and bioengineering-these teaching a course in science, technology characterizedin terms of machines and often refer to the molecular level or to and society for severalyears. I was asked manufacturing processes, I find a intimate relationshipsbetween the liv- to develop the course for communica- broaderdefinition more useful.After all, ing and nonliving as in artificialjoints tions majors so they could come to ap- technology existed long before there or tooth implants. But before getting preciate how the sciences relate to each were factories and was often developed into a specific example, I want to ex- other and to technology, and also to see with little relation to science. To me, plore a little furtherthe implications of how these relate to the larger culture. technology includes all human-madear- these words. I'll concentrate on the Puttingthis course togetherwas difficult tifacts that are in some way useful, and word engineering because a great deal for someone more interested in the in- engineering is the process of creating of the technology made in our world to- ner workings of animals and plants than such artifacts.When I ask my students day is createdby engineers, and though of locomotives and cameras, but it has to write abouta piece of technology that science and engineering are seen as re- been a lot of fun and I've learneda great does not requireelectricity and that has lated to each other, I think most biolo- deal. For example, I've come to appre- moving parts, they are paralyzed. Do gists see engineering as outside their ciate just how intertwined the sciences such things exist? But they end up real- ordinaryexperience. I know it was out- are with each other-you cannotdiscuss izing that spoons and rubberballs and a side mine until I started investigating a subject such as color without bringing lot of other very useful items fit the bill, technology issues, and then I discov- in everythingfrom the eye and the chem- so I think looking at the word technol- ered a number of authors who write istry of pigments to the physics of light ogy in broadterms makes a lot of sense. about engineering for the general pub- and the structureof a camera; you can- To my surprise, I've also learned lic and do a good job of making the something about biology from teaching practice and concerns of engineers ac- about technology.When we think about cessible to those outsidethe field. While Maura C. Flannery is Professor of Bi- technology we tend to envision ma- none of them writes about biotechnol- ologyand Assistant Director of theCen- chines; my students see an endless line ogy and bioengineering, their work is ter for Teachingand Learningat St. of TVs, cellular phones, computers,and relevant to issues involved in these John's University, Jamaica, NY CD-players. But we also use a great fields, and their neglect is not really 11439. She earneda B.S. in biology many living things as pieces of technol- surprisingconsidering that many of the fromMarymount Manhattan College; an ogy. If technology is defined as some- people in these fields are not engineers M.S.,also in biology,from Boston Col- thing useful, then watchdogs and yeast to begin with. Biologists have comman- lege and a Ph.D. in science education and horses are included, to say nothing deered the words technology and engi- fromNew YorkUniversity. Her major of the we eat and wear. neering for their own purposes, with- interestsare in communicatingscience organisms (Your out regardfor the fact thatengineers like to the nonscientistand in the relation- first thought may be that I'm referring to think of themselves as cer- shipbetween biology and art. to meat and furs, but plants too are liv- having ing thingsso this includesapples and cot- tain credentials,including an engineer- ton as well.) I would also argue that the ing degree. This is despite the fact that the word originally indicated those who plain how pieces of technology change Flormandeal more with results,Vincenti were skilled, though often with little over time. His basic thesis is that arti- gets down to the nitty-grittyand shows schooling, such as railroad engineers. facts continue to be changed, to be im- how these results are actually created. The word is still often commandeered proved, until they become particularly by those in such fields-one of my stu- well-suited for the job they must per- Polymerase Chain Reaction dents informed me that there is such a form, and then the rate of change slows thingas a cosmetic engineer(A. Duncan, or even stops. To prove his point, he uses But where is the biology in all this? personal communication,March 1998), not the sophisticatedtechnology of the I've just been discussing technology and and the refuse collectors in New York late 20th century-what my studentssee engineeringand haven't touched the bio like to referto themselves as sanitaryen- as real technology-but rather,such ev- part, but I'm getting there. I think the gineers. eryday items as the fork, the paperclip, ideas. I've gleaned from the books I've Engineers are seen as very practical, and the Post-itTM.In ToEngineer Is Hu- mentionedare relevant to biotechnology down-to-earth people. They are very man, Petroski (1985) arguesthat failure and bioengineering.A good example of goal-oriented.Usually, they have a rather is an essential and unavoidable part of this is the development of PCR, poly- clear vision of what they are to create, the process of engineering,that it is im- merasechain reaction, in the early 1980s. though how they would get to that goal possible for an engineer to know all the This technique was the subject of a ma- may not be nearly as obvious. This in- implications of a particulardesign. Of jor biotech development effort and then terest in the practical and the serious course, engineers work hard to avoid became a tool in a greatmany other such Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/60/6/464/48694/4450522.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 gives the impression that engineers are failure by taking into account what they efforts. This technique is the brainchild not very exciting people and are rather know aboutphysical forces, the proper- of Kary Mullis, a molecular biologist narrowin their interests: today they en- ties of materials,and the stresses of use, who was working for Cetus, a biotech joy spending time working with their and if they kept doing the same thing firmnin California. Though he had a computers;as in the past theirslide rules over and over, creating the same build- Ph.D. in molecular biology, he was do- occupied their attention. The engineer ing or the same bridge design, then the ing the ratherroutine job of synthesiz- Samuel Florman has written several failure rate would drop to nearly zero. ing oligonucleotides, relatively short books to try to counteract this impres- But as new materialsbecome available nucleotidesequences, for otherresearch- sion. I read The Existential Pleasure of and new challenges arise, the old solu- ers in the company.While drivingout of Engineering(1976) long before I started tions are abandoned,and it is through town one weekend, it struck him that teaching about technology; it was the movement into new, unchartedwaters there was a way to synthesize large title that attracted me. In this book, that failures are most likely to occur. amounts of a particular nucleotide se- Florman argues that engineers are not Thus failure and progress are two sides quence, any particularsequence in a ge- emotionless automatons who think of of the same coin, and it's impossible to nome. This could be done by separating nothing but numbers and graphs. They have one without the other. the two strandsof DNA, addingprimers derive a great deal of emotional as well WalterVincenti is another engineer that were complementaryto the begin- as intellectual satisfaction from their who sees failure as intimately involved ning sequence of one strand of the tar- work. Creating something out of form- in the design of new technology. His get sequence and to the ending sequence less material,making peoples' lives bet- book, WhatEngineers Know and How on the other strand.If DNA polymerase ter, and working on large awe-inspiring They Know It: Analytical Studiesfrom was added, both strands of the target projects are all sources of pleasure.