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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

The benefits of connecting researchers and business people to bring scientific discoveries into the market place are numerous: more effective drugs and better diagnostic procedures, to name only two. But the flip side is that even if a discovery has an obvious and significant application that could change people’s lives, the constraints of the market may make it impossible to develop. Glenn Prestwich notes that “there are goods and bads about biotechnology, and one is, it’s all about ease to ease of approval and market size. You can have a customer, you can have a great technology, but if you can’t reimburse it, if you can’t get traction in the marketplace, it’s dead.”

Prestwich / Stony Brook Center for Biotechnology

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.