{{Biodiversity: the other crisis}}

  Parliamentary office for the evaluation of scientific and technological choices (link)
  Public hearing of March 28, 2007

  In the context of the contributions of science and technology to sustainable development, Senators Pierre Lafitte and Claude Saunier invited several scientific personalities to respond to their questions. Jean Weissenbach, Director of Genoscope, participated in the Round Table, “Sustainable development of biodiversity: How biodiversity can can continue to be a source of the indispensable and diversified services furnished by ecosystems, and become the future toolbox for the 4th industrial revolution?” The following is an extract of his intervention:
  “...I will mainly discuss the importance of microbial diversity in a certain number of applications, notably in the field of chemistry. As has been emphasized, we still do not know the number of microbial species which exist. Nevertheless, this figure is not as important as the biological functions that these microbes are capable of performing. Here again we have no inventory; this will require a considerable scientific effort. A few days ago Craig Venter published a list of seven million genes of microbial origin; we do not know the function of half of these, although it is likely that they are involved in bioconversions. These bioconversions are essential for the chemistry of the future. Since these bioconversions will not longer be based on petroleum, this will necessitate the the use of catalysts for a complete series of chemical reactions that at present can only be carried out by nature. When we ask chemists to use enzymes, they very often reply that they know nothing about them. In fact, when I heard this type of reply a few weeks ago during a meeting of the National Research Agency, I was particulary disturbed to note that our chemist colleagues are still thinking in very classical terms. It is the same with our industrialists—the only way to to convince them was to propose “turnkey” solutions, i.e. to place all the research efforts on the scientists. However, at present the situation of biochemical research in France is cause for concern. Biochemistry has effectively been replaced by molecular biology, which I represent. At the moment, students don’t want to hear about biochemistry or metabolism. It is therefore essential for us to reverse this tendancy, by taking inspiration from our neighbors like Germany, which still has a very satisfactory level of biochemistry. Also, its chemical industry is paying a lot of attention to bioconversion. It is the same in the United States. We must therefore make major efforts to encourage the industrialists and the political institutions to relaunch research in these domains.”

Actes de l’audition du 28 mars 2007