What are some examples of exponential growth in enabling technologies?
Dr. von Eschenbach: It is instructive to look back at the progress technology has enabled in the past few decades. Shortly after Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA, the 1960s ushered in electron microscopy. Its 100-fold increased magnification enabled researchers to see DNA inside the tiny viruses called phages that infect bacteria. By the end of the decade, the enzyme polymerase, used by these phages to copy DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), was known. Then, in the 1970s, phages were combined with enzymes like polymerase and ligase to develop technology for replicating DNA in a test tube. This, in turn, enabled development of systems to study the regulation of DNA replication. Technology in the 1980s emerged from basic research’s discovery of restriction enzymes and reverse transcriptase. Biochemical systems were created that could slice, dice, insert, delete, and mass produce sections of DNA. This recombinant DNA technology enabled phages and bacteria to become factories for the mass pro
