Digital Matters - Issue 29

Everybody knows that the information-technology revolution changes everything that it touches -- and that it touches almost everything. Information technology isn't a business category or an industry. It's a crosscut that changes every business and every industry -- and, in so doing, it changes how societies function.

When the history of our time is written, however, the digital revolution will not be the lead story. The lead story will be the genomics revolution -- a crosscut that really changes everything. And virtually no one knows anything about it.

For the moment, the best primer on the genomics revolution is a Harvard Business School case study. Titled "Gene Research, the Mapping of Life and the Global Economy," case N9-599-016 was written by Juan Enriquez, a researcher at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, under the supervision of Ray A. Goldberg, a legendary HBS professor. Once you have a copy of the study, read every word of it. The case -- which is being read by top people at major companies in the fields of health care, agriculture, energy, chemicals, and defense -- will change how you think about the future.

At his home office near Boston, Juan Enriquez works amid a collection of maps. He is finishing up a book about international borders and the cartography of the new economy, and he drew on that work to write the lead article in the Fall 1999 issue of Foreign Policy. But it is the mapping of life that has captured his imagination. He is working with his friends Claire Fraser and Craig Venter -- whose company, the Celera Genomics Group, is attempting to sequence the nearly 3.5 billion nucleotide base pairs contained in every human genome. Scientists expect to complete this work by 2002.

In his HBS case study, Enriquez describes Fraser and Venter as the "new cartographers. Instead of mapping continents, oceans, peninsulas, rivers and lakes, they are mapping the four base pairs that make up the DNA of living organisms. This is the source code for all forms of life on the planet. Their work will change the way we look at and live with every other person, animal, plant, bacteria, and virus on this planet.

"These discoveries," he continues, "tell us about the past, who evolved from whom, and how. Even more important, they are changing our future." And, as scientists discover the fundamental code of DNA, other disciplines and discoveries are giving mankind the ability to study, design, and build at the molecular level: "By understanding and being able to recreate and modify the instructions that make life, humans will soon be able to directly and deliberately influence their own evolution and that of other species."

And that, as they say, changes everything. Today, about one-half of the soy planted in the United States is genetically engineered. In the not-too-distant future, two-thirds of all U.S.-grown corn, soy, and cotton will most likely be genetically engineered -- either to help those crops fight off pests or to increase their nutritional value.

Companies like Monsanto are experimenting with so-called agriceuticals -- agricultural products that double as pharmaceuticals. Seed companies are experimenting with genetic-enhancement technologies that make coffee beans less or more caffeinated, or that make carrots better for your eyesight. In the near future, most of the frozen foods that you eat will be genetically engineered or enhanced.

In Europe, the genetic engineering of food has engendered a huge backlash. European political elites, sensitive to agricultural constituencies at home and wary of U.S. economic hegemony, have raised a huge fuss over the sale of what they call "genetically modified" foods. As a result, trade relations between the United States and Europe have been strained almost to the breaking point.

This backlash is a pillow fight compared with what will soon follow. Before it is through, the genomics revolution will cause a massive restructuring of several major industries. It will change the health-care business. It will change the insurance business. It will change the pharmaceuticals business. It has the potential to reconfigure the energy, chemical, and petrochemical businesses. And it will completely change national defense.

Just follow the genomics trail through health care, a field that has annual revenues in excess of $1 trillion and that accounts for about one-seventh of U.S. GDP. To be sure, small pieces of the health-care puzzle will not be changed by genomics. If you break your leg, you'll still have to go to the emergency room. Rehabilitation will still involve exercise and personal attention.