Centers
Welcome Message From The Director
Norman Ellstrand
Director of Biotechnology Impacts Center
New Technologies . . .New Questions
One hundred years ago, an array of new technologies, such as mechanized transport and the electrification of cities created hope and anxiety. The impacts of those changes were played out as some folks sang “Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City” and others bemoaned noise, pollution, and the unknown changes to come. Those technologies, like all technologies, have proven to be double-edged swords, their benefits and costs depending on their use. New technology is necessarily associated with change. In all cases, new technology gives rise to new questions.
One hundred years later, the so-called “revolution” associated with the development of new genetic technologies has occurred with considerable growing pains. Rather than waiting to see how the development of the new genetic technologies plays out, we at UCR’s Biotechnology Impacts Center recognize that many of those questions can be answered though the analysis of pre-existing information or though new experimental, descriptive, or theoretical research. For us, it is an iterative process; we identify questions, answer them, and then communicate the results. That communication results in more questions to be answered.
Director
Dr. Norman C. Ellstrand, Professor of Genetics
Dr. Ellstrand has been conducting research on the environmental risks of agricultural biotechnology for more than a decade, focusing on the movement of transgenes into natural weed populations to produce crop-weed hybrids, hybridization as both a beneficial and detrimental factor in plant conservation, and gene flow as a factor in plant evolution.
Associate Director
Dr. Richard Sutch, Distinguished Professor of Economics
Dr. Sutch has long studied the consequences, intended and unintended, of economic and social systems. His current interests include the economic consequences and policy implications of agricultural biotechnology and immigration. Dr. Sutch directs the UCR Center for Social and Economic Policy.