The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the invention of gmos 135tion between science and industry, which radically transformed researchpractices, as the sociologist Susan Wright explains in her standard work onthe history of biotechnology, published in 1994: “As genetic engineering becameseen as a promising investment prospect, a turn from traditional scientificnorms and practices toward a corporate standard took place. Thedawn of synthetic biology coincided with the emergence of a new ethos, oneradically shaped by commerce.” 6 This development was very markedly stimulatedby Monsanto through the patent system that controlled research andthe products derived from it.The Triumph of Genetic TinkeringWhile start-ups were making news on the stock market, one man in St.Louis was conducting a solitary battle. His name was Ernest Jaworski, andhe had joined Monsanto in 1952. This researcher, who was an expert onglyphosate and had worked out the details of its manner of acting on plantcells, had an idea that seemed completely preposterous to his colleagues inthe old chemical company: instead of trying to manufacture new herbicides,why not create selective plants by manipulating their genetic makeup preciselyso they could survive the spraying of herbicides?Encouraged by John Hanley, who became CEO of Monsanto in 1972 andwas also convinced that biology represented the future of chemistry, Jaworskiinitiated himself into the cultivation of plant cells in a Canadian laboratoryand then supervised the work of thirty researchers, including suchrising stars of molecular biology as Robert Fraley, Robert Horsch, andStephen Rogers. “These young genetic engineers did believe that their workwouldbe good for the planet, possibly making it easier to grow food orreducing agriculture’s dependence on chemicals,” according to DanielCharles, author of Lords of the Harvest, who was able to interview the pioneersof biotechnology before they decided to sink into stubborn silence.“Some of them, working inside chemical companies, often saw themselvesas ‘green’ revolutionaries fighting against the entrenched power of the chemists,whom they dismissed as ‘nozzleheads.’” 7Meeting on the fourth floor of U Building at Monsanto’s Creve Coeur location,a suburb of St. Louis to which the company had recently moved, theteam was nicknamed “Uphoria” by company skeptics, who saw this group of