During the talk of Roderick Lim, which included not only a lot of information about the nucleopore complex, but also Lim’s idea of an equilibrium between nano and bio, a question arose in my head. In Lim’s understanding this would denote a bidirectional exchange: Taking a look at biological systems from the nano-point of view brings new insight in their functionality. On the other hand, knowing how biological systems work may contribute to a progress in nanotechnology. Is there a similar equilibrium between technology and science in general?
I would claim that there is. A lot of our technological improvements are adopted from nature. Think about the lotus effect for example. The other way around, technological improvements create new or better tools for basic research, allowing new understanding of nature and thus the possibility to new applications?
Or is it more a one way reaction, is basic research inviting the instruments they need by themselves and the industry is just profiting from all the innovation?
What do you think?
I think there is a clear benefit of technological advances also for basic research.
One of the most obvious examples are the semiconductor industry. Chip makers put a lot of money in developing faster and better computers. This then directly benefits any research where e.g. computational power is important. Basic researchers would not have the money to develop the new processes needed for faster chips themselves.
Also another example is when the industry takes something from basic research (e.g. AFM or other microscopy applications). The industry wants to make money, i.e. sell their machines. For this, they develop them in a way that also non-experts can use the machnies. This way, new tools become more accessible to other research fields. Take for example improvements in optical microscopy or spectroscopy(confocal imaging, FCS, …). These tools were mostly invented and improved by physicists, but through industry they became valuable tools eg. for biologists.
More and more universities realize that patenting their inventions is a good source of finance. Unfortunately, this culture is not very well developed in Switzerland, yet. However there is e.q. a patent office at the ETH. Consequently, a young ETH professor told me, that he covers his lab-expenses mostly with patent income.
Moreover, especially in live science but not only, the universities generate more and more spin-off companies. Thus, the university lab can be used to generate know-how, while the company comes up with a product and generates a back-flow of money, in an ideal case.
Finally, we should consider that the know-how transfer from universities to companies is fine, as long as the know-how stays within the university support belt. With other words, when swiss know-how flows to swiss companies, jobs will be generated and taxes payed. However, if there is no industry for the know-how of the university, then the investment in university research is lost.
In brief, there are many cases when industry and universities profits from each other. But it is important that the politics and society play their part well too and make a good playground.