Practitioners' forum perestroika and soviet biotechnology

This article summarizes the findings of a UK Department of Trade and Industry 'Overseas Science and Technology Expert Mission' on Biotechnology to the USSR, made over the period 15-24 September 1989. The mission visited some of the most important basic research institutes working in biotechnmology in the Moscow region, including the 'Biocity' of Poushchino, and Kiev in the Ukrainian SSR. These institutes ranged from primarily basic research to ones which had strong links with industrial production. We report on the scientific and technical level of some of the most advanced Soviet centres, such as the Shemyakin Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, the most important and prominent biotechnology institute in the USSR. The peculiar problems which best Soviet research in the field are described in the context of perestroika, the current restruing of Soviet society.