Monsanto Co. and the Soviet Union have brought glasnost to the lab with a three-year agreement to establish a joint laboratory at the modem Shemyakin Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry in Moscow. The agreement marks the first time that a bio- technology company has launched a major collaboration with the Soviet Union.
The laboratory will be staffed by 10 to 15 Soviet scientists now being recruited from other laboratories at Shemyakin, and supported by Monsanto with a contribution of $300,000 to $500,000 worth of scientific equipment. The laboratory’s agenda will include basic research in three areas; the genetic engineering of plants for resistance to drought, pesticides, and salt; human and animal growth hormones; and neurobiological processes.
“What we’ve agreed to;” saysErnest Jaworski, director of biological sciences at St. Louis-based Monsanto, “is a laboratory in which Soviet scientists will be working on a project we’ve mutually outlined and mutually agreed to.” The ...
