Basic biological research at the dawn of a new century.

opportunity to speak with you, particularly because this ceremony marks the successful completion of the studies you have undertaken. So first, I want to congratulate you for an achievement you can be very proud of and second, since you are now professional, I mean, card-carrying chemists and biochemists, I want to tell you a few things about the fields you have selected and discuss a couple of very serious and controversial problems that will confront us in the years to come, and that will not be solved without the contribution and help of people with your background and formation. I believe it is the right time to bring up these issues because the advances that have occurred in those areas in the last 10 or 20 years are absolutely without precedent. If the first half of the century that just ended was that of nuclear physics, with Einstein’s relativity and Max Planks’ quantum theory, atomic energy etc., there is no doubt that the second half belonged to biology. It gave us incredibly sophisticated new instrumentation and technologies, such as genetic engineering with gene cloning, manipulation, and expression without which we would know essentially nothing about our genetic make-up, hereditary diseases such as muscular dystrophy or diabetes, viral diseases such as AIDS, or cancer. And with the pervasive presence of the computer that allows us to analyze and display data, store them and retrieve them at the touch of a button, the scientists of today have at their disposal an incredible array of techniques undreamed of just a few years ago. The first problem I want to mention is world hunger. Indeed nowadays, more than 3/4 of a billion people remain chronically undernourished and over 180 million children are on the verge of starvation. But the agricultural environment has already been taxed to its limit and there are few realistic opportunities for opening up new land. Soils are eroding and losing their fertility, precious water supplies are being squandered, fish stocks are declining worldwide and have already been depleted in many parts of the world oceans, and forests have been devastated by the push of urbanization, by wars, fires, acid rain, toxic wastes, etc. Therefore, this new century will have to rely on biologists to feed a population that will exceed 8 and a half billion in 20 years. The task will be enormous because today, world population is increasing faster than agricultural productivity. So, unless one can curb overpopulation world-wide (and I don’t mean in developed countries only, but globally: after all, the