EFB Home > Interview: Prof. Dr. Rainer Fischer
Interview: Prof. Dr. Rainer Fischer
“It would be very scary if the younger generation doesn’t pursue science careers, as that would mean that we won’t have enough educated scientists to deal with emerging scientific issues in the future”
Prof. Dr. Rainer Fischer
Department Head of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
Senior Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology
01/10/2006
In 1986, Dr. Rainer Fischer succeeded in making genetically modified tobacco plants that were capable of producing antibodies to protect themselves against viruses. Today, he uses transgenic plants to produce recombinant proteins, which have the potential to provide efficient pharmaceutical products at more affordable costs. Prof. Fischer serves as reviewer for multiple national and international grant agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the European Commission.
EFB: What is needed in Europe to speed up further development of transgenic technologies?
Prof. Dr. Rainer Fischer: “The entire educational programme should be changed in order to get people more interested and aware of what is needed for future market and product development. It should start in elementary school all the way through high school and the university. Students should be taught the benefits of being in this field and the potential of transgenic technologies to make them want to take challenges for making positive contributions to society and the environment. There’s a tendency to shift to medical professions, law or business oriented jobs because of a perception that the salaries may be potentially higher and the working hours may be better. Science can be a frustrating job because 95% of all the science you do is not successful. Overcoming this frustration barrier and teaching people to cope with that and still being positive and really making an impact on society takes a lot of energy, money, and motivation; and that is something very difficult to change. In order to have a friendlier environment to encourage people to move in this field, institutions like the European Commission and the National Governments should take a more active role by implementing novel educational programs directed to students, professors and researchers at the universities as well as to other scientific organisations and start-up biotech companies.”
EFB: Is the younger generation of Europeans losing their interest to pursue science careers?
R.F.: “I’m afraid so, and that is very scary when you think about the present and the future needs of our society. New issues and challenges will emerge in ten to twenty years that we cannot even imagine. It would be very scary if the younger generation doesn’t pursue science careers, as that would mean that we won’t have enough educated scientists to deal with emerging issues in the future. I hope that the interest in the Life Sciences increases among young students and that they look more to these as a positive asset and a future growth potential to their careers. Governments can implement educational programmes and increase the funding, but it’s not just up to politicians to motivate the younger generation. Scientists also need to assume their part of responsibility. A major interaction between scientists, the public, and the politicians is truly needed, and it should not stop in meetings and discussions. The ideas need to be implemented, and I think that’s the biggest problem we have in Europe: too much talking, not enough action.”
EFB: What is your personal advice on the draft of the future 7th Research Framework Programme of the European Commission?
R.F.: “It has a few weaknesses. The first one is that the timeline has been delayed. The second one, that the budget for the Life Sciences seems to be comparable to the previous Framework Programme but, if you look closely, it has been reduced because this time the total amount is for seven years instead of five. In terms of topics, it is not clear yet what direction is going to be taken, but large integrated projects will play an important role again, and I personally think this is only beneficial in selected cases. I’m coordinating one of the large integrated projects, the Pharma-Planta Project for manufacturing of biopharmaceutical HIV antibodies in transgenic tobacco and corn, and the truth is that it is pretty frustrating.”
EFB: Why?
R.F.: “We have 39 partners. Chasing everybody to be on time with the report or contribution is very difficult from a management point of view. Another aspect to be considered is that the funding score for large projects is very low nowadays. Very often you have to invest several months to write a full proposal and many organizations cannot afford it anymore. Increasing the number of medium size projects would be a good idea, as they are much more efficient in terms of management and implementation. Regarding the autonomy of managing the funds, there were a lot of promises been made for the 6th Framework Programme but now, with the external auditing, extra burden has been added to managing the projects. I’m a scientist, I take on my management responsibilities, but if the management takes over the science then something is wrong. Scientists should have a higher degree of freedom implementing their programmes and the amount of administrative issues should be reduced to a minimum. There should be advisory panels or committees to supervise the progress of the project, but there should be ways to reduce the paperwork so that scientists have more time to do the research, implementing it or even moving it into the commercialization status. I think we are wasting too much time on paperwork, which sometimes has proven to kill projects.”
EFB: The Eurobarometer survey for 2005 showed an increased support of Europeans for health biotechnology, but a decline in the overall levels of support based on the usefulness of technologies.
R.F.: “We can clearly support the comment that everything health related is of much greater potential acceptance in the community because it has a direct benefit to the consumer as opposed to other products such as herbicide resistant plants, where the direct benefit goes to the companies and to the farmers. In Europe and North America we are pretty much spoiled and sometimes we forget to look beyond our borders, but people in Third World countries that die of hunger need these products. Transgenic plants are not the only solution, but it is definitely an important one for overcoming issues including the provision of health benefits with improved nutritional quality for food, as well as, of course, the health benefits by manufacturing biopharmaceuticals.”
EFB: The Eurobarometer also showed that the majority of Europeans are opposed to GM food and disagree that these new technologies should be encouraged because they are still perceived as risky.
R.F.: “It is right and perfectly fine from my point of view to look for potential full protection and cover all safety aspects for the consumer and the environment, but the truth is that there’s no technology in no matter what field -chemical industry, automotive industry…- that is a 100% safe. Think about how many people get killed in car accidents per year. I think everybody would agree with me on a European and global scale that driving a car is pretty dangerous. But it’s not only about GM food; the opposition is often also strong about health biotechnology. If there are now one or two cases of people showing side effects during the treatment of a biopharmaceutical, no matter which production system used, everybody is making major outcry, but in the end people shouldn’t forget the story of penicillin.”
You’ve been co-founder of 5 start-up biotech companies. What’s your advice for start-ups?
R.F.: “If there’s something that looks commercially attractive that fits into developing potential markets and the needs of the society, I would highly encourage to start a company, but unfortunately most people from universities and even research organisations don’t have the tool sets and management skills to run one. In this case, I would recommend teaming up with more experienced people from industry, if possible with scientists from established companies that want to take on a new challenge, to have them as a strong support to start the company from the management and organisational point of view. The most frustrating aspect from experience is finding the financial support to start a company. Ideas are not the problem, but their implementation requires money and all the programs I’m aware of either with venture capitalists, private investment or local support from government plans are extremely complicated. You have to spend not only months, sometimes years, to get the money to implement what could be an excellent idea. And often in the end it cannot be implemented because of the difficulty of finding an investor that supports your business idea and make it come true.”
EFB: What regions worldwide would you recommend for biotech start-ups?
R.F.: “Each continent and country has its internal issues and challenges and you cannot generalize, but I’ve seen other places on the globe where the tax situation, the benefits, and the start–up investment are easier to obtain than in Europe. For instance, in Asia right now there are a few countries with excellent start-up support. There is also a positive environment for start-ups in the US, where I successfully started a research facility in Delaware. Things move much quicker there and depending on the State you move to, you can get very strong local political support from the senators and the governors. The counties that have a heavy impact and focus on the Life Sciences have always provided the right support in due time”.
EFB: You hold more than 20 patent applications and seven granted patents. What has been your personal experience dealing with patent processes?
R.F.: “To be honest, I have a very ambivalent opinion about patents. It’s a very tedious process to get a patent awarded, not only writing it, but also defending it. It can take up to ten years, the process is very expensive, and the effort is not always worth it in terms of return of investment. Most companies use patents as a solution to protect all markets, which is right, but sometimes patents become more of a defence strategy than a proactive one to basically not allow the competition entering the market. It is clear than in certain cases patent protection is the best solution, but there are other ways of protection such as trademarks and trade secrets that should also be considered. In university-based settings, patents can be a killer because of the financial effort. Even though patents are one of our major growth strategies in one of our institutes at Fraunhofer –which is living very well on royalties- this is one extremely positive case out of the 59 institutes we have. It’s like the needle in the haystack. Sometimes you might be lucky and you should pursue it for that reason, but the question is always the return for investment and how much should you really put into in terms of time, effort, and money.”
EFB: What actions should be taken to have a faster and more efficient drug approval process?
R.F.: “That’s a very difficult question to answer. One of the solutions could be harmonization at a European and US level. Educational programs could provide a better knowledge about drug development and drug approval. Once that tool set is available, a better understanding of the thinking process should be used to initiate communications with regulatory bodies such as EMEA [European Medicines Evaluation Agency] with the purpose of looking for some solutions to have a reduction of time in the drug approval process. A harmonization of protocols and regulatory approval between the EMEA and the FDA in the US, which right now follow two different regulatory approval paths, could also be of tremendous help. With a combination of educational programs, harmonisation of regulatory approvals and industry support it should be feasible to have some shortcuts in the future on the drug approval process. But this is very challenging…”
EFB: What sectors of biotechnology need further development in Europe?
R.F.: “I think the big problem we have in Europe, and also in the US in the end, is that nobody is really taking an integrative approach at the interface of different sciences to provide the customer and the patients the appropriate solutions. Europe should put more emphasis in trying to get scientists from different disciplines together and working in a more team and goal oriented approach from bench to the clinic. Fraunhofer is one of the organizations that is putting a lot of emphasis on innovation combined with internal, national and international networking on five major topics: logistics, transportation, energy, water and health. We have already half a dozen research organizations that have come together in Europe and the US and a few other organisations in South Africa, India, Malaysia and Australia. I think that’s one way it could be taken in the future. When you get them together the flow of new ideas is very rich, but it’s really challenging to find financial support to implement the programs. I’ve talked to some of the directors of the European Commission already on this idea and they are very interested and open to help.”
EFB: What is your current research at the Fraunhofer Institute?
R.F.: “We are currently carrying out several activities on applied research. We offer integrated solutions from biomarker identification and validation with modern platform technologies like genomics, proteomics, moving towards systems biology to understand the disease causes in a holistic fashion. The next level is then to develop either vaccines or diagnostic and therapeutic antibodies against these biomarkers that we have identified. Our 3rd area in the development chain is the biomanufacturing of the vaccines and the biopharmaceuticals in different production systems such as microbial, CHO or plant based systems.”
EFB: Any new areas of biotech research you are currently pursuing?
R.F.: “We’re now moving into going at the interface between molecular biotechnology, biomedical research and engineering sciences. I see a lot of future applications at these interfaces to build new businesses and new research programmes. Nanobiotechnology is a perfect example of this, for instance, the combination of nanomaterials with biological substances like peptides or antibodies for targeted delivery or early stage molecular diagnostics. Another area we are currently very heavily focusing and that will expand in the future is the field of life cell imaging in the context of systems biology-based approaches. Since a year and a half now, we have strongly focused on industrial biotechnology and we have already developed some interesting technologies. We have two major big proposals together with six to eight different institutes. We intend to become a total solution provider to offer innovative solution approaches or platforms along every step of the value chain.”
EFB: Why did you get into science? Why biotech?
R.F.: “By accident (he laughs). I originally wanted to be in sports, but I had a major skiing accident and I had to look for a second career. At an early stage, my interest in biology led me to take an educational programme for two years as a laboratory technician, and from there I just couldn’t stop. I got interested in microbiology, and later I went into exploring virology, immunology, plant biotechnology, production and purification of recombinant proteins… I got really hooked. The most rewarding aspect of my profession is the hope and the motivation of one day finding a cure for certain diseases or at least to contribute to the provision of intelligent solutions or medications. Also, the opportunity to contribute to the education of future scientists and giving them the right tools in terms of thinking how to approach and implement science and how to succeed after graduating.”