National priorities allow room for biotech

Between the broad brushstrokes of the Federal government's four National Research Priorities, announced last Friday by Prime Minister John Howard, there is room for a major contribution from Australia's biotechnology and biomedical researchers.

After "extensive consultation" with Australian science and industry, Howard nominated four areas in which the government will invest, to deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits. They are:

• An environmentally sustainable Australia;
• Promoting and maintaining good health;
• Frontier technologies for building and transforming Australian industries; and
• Safeguarding Australia.

The Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), Australia's peak council for scientists and technologists, welcomed the announcement, and FASTS' Vice-President, Dr David Denham said they underlined the importance of science in Australian society.

But Denham warned that implementing the priorities within budgetary constraints presented "a significant challenge" for the government, because all the priorities were important and required commensurate funding.

He said FASTS particularly welcomed the recognition of "breakthrough science" as a general priority, because fundamental research produced unexpected benefits that often were not realised until decades later.

According to Howard's statement, the 'sustainable Australia' priority will aim to transform the way Australians use the nation's land, water, mineral and energy resources, through better understanding of the environment, and the application of new technologies to natural resource industries.

The biotechnology industry is already active in research in these areas. Microbes are being used for bioremediation, and mineral extraction, new biosensor technologies are being developed to monitor water pollution, while in the energy sector, improved strains of yeast and other microbes for distilling methanol and ethanol from biomass fuels, or for increasing oil recovery from depleted oilfields.

Genetic engineers are also trying to develop crops that exploit nutrients more efficiently, and genetically modified (GM) crops with inbuilt insecticides, or resistance genes to ward off fungal, viral and bacterial diseases -- all strategies that could substantially reduce agricultural run-off and water pollution.

The biomedical industry is placed to make a substantial contribution to human health, both by delivering new forms or therapy, or novel drugs, and through genomics research that will identify individual susceptibilities to major killers like cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders.

The government's 'frontier technologies for industry' priority is the only one to explicitly mention biotechnology, bioinformatics, and nanotechnology -- all fast-evolving fields.

The 'safeguarding Australia' priority mentions research to prevent terrorism, crime, invasive diseases, and pests -- all areas in which recombinant DNA technology now plays a routine and indispensable role.

Howard said that as a first step towards implementing these national priorities, all Commonwealth funding and research funding bodies will be asked to make submissions to the government by May next year, outlining how they propose to support them.

The government has also announced a major review of the state of Australian science, which will map science and innovation activities across the public and private sectors.