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Library – Archives – Humanities  / Education / Center for Humanities & History of Modern Biology / Exhibits, Projects and Initiatives / Plant Science, Biotechnology, & Agriculture

The Early Days of Biotech on Long Island

Some times the direction your company takes is driven not by decisions you make, but by things entirely outside your control.  One of the challenges for Protein Databases, Inc., was that the process to produce their product, a precise description of a protein from a sample, took a long time. CEO Steve Blose describes how in the early 1990s, he visited Japan as part of a search for a company that could make an automated system. “We found a company that actually built one in Tsukuba City. While we were there looking at it, we were hit with a Richter seven earthquake… By the time they got everything back together again, a lot of things had moved on.” And that point, he decided that based on where the industry was, and where the company was, trying to automate their system would not get PDI where he wanted the company to go, and they had to make some hard choices.

PDI

Plants need nitrogen to grow, but a significant portion of the nitrogen in fertilizers is not absorbed by the soil or used by the growing plants. Rather, it washes away into waterways, rivers, and the ocean. This in turn has had devastating effects on marine life. In some areas, excessive nitrogen in the oceans has caused algae blooms that kill wildlife, make it dangerous for people to consume fish or shellfish or in some cases even swim in affected waters. This problem isn’t limited to poorer countries. Nitrogen pollution is a serious problem here on Long Island. In our case, the nitrogen comes primarily from septic tanks and cesspools, although nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers also plays a role. Nitrogen pollution in the waters around Long Island has hampered fishing, made it dangerous to eat seafood from some areas, and caused environmental changes that make coastal areas more prone to flooding.