The Frontline one of India’s last few leftist news magazines’ (The cover story last month was a tribute to the ‘Living Legend‘- Castro, the week after that the cover story was an attack on the ‘Neo-liberal policies‘ of the UPA Govt.) carried a superbly detailed interview of Nobel Laureate David Baltimore. Dr. Baltimore shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco at the young age of 37. At the time, Baltimore’s greatest contribution to virology was his discovery of reverse transcriptase (RTase). His research was also crucial to development of Glivec – Novartis’ anti-cancer drug which was the subject of intense litigation last year.
The reason that SpicyIP is bringing this interview to your notice is the fact that it gives a scientist’s perspective on the ‘moral conundrum’ regarding public health and patents. The interview also covers other interesting topics like the Bayh-Dole Act, the problems of maintaining a high-quality open source journal like Nature and the funding problems being encountered by the Bio-Tech Industry. Its a two part interview and a must read. Please click here for the first part and here for the second part. SpicyIP found the second part ‘spicier’.
