There have been few issues around which Missouri has rallied more wholeheartedly than the life sciences. Farm or city, public or private, Republican or Democrat – most Missourians seem to acknowledge the power and promise of advances in the branches of science known collectively as the life sciences.

We’ve hired Battelle Memorial Institute (PDF) to write about it. We’ve opened a magnificent building to match our campuswide program to study it. Missouri is now becoming fully engaged in dealing with the science and practice of the life sciences. We’re living it.

The life sciences, and their implications, highlight Missouri connections in some of the highest-profile science policy issues of our day. In covering the nation’s "stem cell struggles," the March 28, 2005, issue of Time magazine featured Kansas City’s Stowers Institute and its concerns with proposed legislation in the Missouri General Assembly that could influence research. SB160, HB 168, and HB457 all seek to strengthen restrictions on science that could contribute to the possibility of human cloning. Just the week before, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences carried a feature paper from the Michael Roberts lab reporting low oxygen levels inhibiting differentiation in their research with the federally approved colonies of human stem cells.

In additon to human and animal biology, March was also a busy month for the Missouri rice industry. Following an earlier announcement of Ventria Bioscience that it would move from Sacramento, Calif., to Maryville, Mo., the February 23 Federal Register announced Ventria's applications for permitting production of two genetically modified rice cultivars in Scott County, Mo. Public documents posted on the USDA-APHIS docket reveal the request to grow rice that would express lysozyme and lactoferrin, which are intended for extraction in the manufacturing of human pharmaceuticals. Concern over the compatibility of the genetically modified rice growing near the Missouri Bootheel’s burgeoning commodity rice acreage attracted more than 500 filed public comments, which can be found in the dockets. Included are comments filed by Dean Payne and myself (aided by faculty members such as Brian Ottis, MU professor of agronomy) at the request of the Missouri Farm Bureau.

As we transition from promise to practice with the life sciences, it is important to remember the role the College must play – that of being an honest broker. Now more than ever, our research and education play a critical role in moving society and the economy into the future. Just as we toil in the laboratories, so must our scholarship become more proactively involved in dealing with the ethics and policies surrounding Missouri’s adoption of the life sciences. Toward that end, faculty members such as Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes and Sandra Hodge have lent their skills in drafting educational materials and hosting forums to engage Missourians in the choices available in using the coming era as a true Missouri benefit.

One rationale for broad support of the life sciences has been the acknowledgment that the service and knowledge sectors will be among the most attractive portions of the new economy (see Figure 1, below).

Source: US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis .

This has been a key reason the state has invested nearly 80 percent of its public research expenditures in the life sciences while most other states invest 45 to 65 percent (see Figure 2, below).

Source: National Science Foundation, 2004 .

As most would guess, in the private sector, Monsanto alone spends nearly the equivalent of all Missouri’s public research effort in the life sciences. But few Missourians would know that even though private firms dealing with the life sciences are clustered around St. Louis and Kansas City, smaller firms are also spread throughout the state (see Figure 3).

Note: All figures appear courtesy of Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes and his forthcoming guide to Missouri and the life sciences.

Missouri is certainly among the states moving the life sciences from lofty proclamations to real life decisions. But another part of the rhetoric I’ve experienced on campus has been the contention that the life sciences are only for the biologists among us, the gene jockeys within our faculty, staff and students. Looking back over the last month, I would have to disagree. The debate surrounding stem cells has needed the Mike Roberts lab, but also the ethicists. And in looking over the hundreds of public comments filed on plant-made pharmaceutical rice, I see concerns with the agronomic questions – but the most passionate are concerns about possible economic consequences. We at Mizzou are well configured to integrate the natural and social sciences in assisting the state to deal with the choices ahead. And the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources will most likely be among the first to be asked.

Regards, John