A Life with Yeast Molecular Biology - Prof. Dr. Horst Feldmann

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H. FELDMANN
pharmaceutical firms publicly stated ‘‘y there is no need to
engage in this doubtful enterprise, if it turns out promising, we
will buy the know-how y’’; (ii) later, the first attempts to set up
an industrial production (e.g. for human insulin in recombinant
bacteria) failed as German authorities voted down a bill. In all
honesty I have to say that fortunately the situation in
biotechnology has changed thanks to the engagement from
politics, research and industry, so that these days biotechnology
has a good and respected standing world-wide.
As I felt (fortunately not being the only one) that it was timely
around the early 1980s to familiarize at least those people
interested in the ‘‘chances and risks’’ of gene technology with the
new developments, I accepted several invitations to discuss the
relevant items with chemists, geneticist, pharmacists,
medical doctors or even ‘‘laymen,’’ at congresses or privately
(e.g. [149–151]). In 1981, German industry no longer could deny
that gene technology was attractive. But except a few smaller
companies, who showed a growing interest in adapting novel
techniques, there was no sincere attempt from ‘‘in-house’’ to
train their employees. Rather came an impetus from the
Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, who asked me in 1982 to
organize an advanced vocational training course on ‘‘Methods
and Results of Gene Technology’’ for some 20 participants at our
institute. I could solicit the help of some of my junior colleagues
(Fritz Fittler, Urs Hänggi, Peter Philippsen, Rolf Streeck, and
Wolfgang Wintermeyer), but generous funding allowed me to also
invite foreign lecturers. This course was offered and successfully
repeated 3 times in the years after, until 1985. A remarkable
feature was that there was a growing interest of patent attorneys
in these courses. A number of large and well respected offices had
been established in Munich, whose clientele recruited from
renowned biotechnical companies world-wide, the reason being
that the European Patent Office had been installed in Munich in
1977. The contacts brought about by the courses stimulated
several of our young doctoral students to start a career as patent
attorneys as well (in all about 10).
The courses on gene technology in Munich had raised the
particular interest of Boehringer GmbH, who wanted to set up a
similar advanced vocational training course for their staff, which
we called ‘‘Novel Methods in Gene Technology.’’ With my good
colleagues and friends Wolfram Hörz and Gustav Klobeck both