Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What actually is biotechnology, and where is the future of medicine heading? In Room #866 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn,” the group digs into mRNA hope versus mRNA fear, gene-edited seeds and CRISPR, brain implants and Homo Deus, and the very personal stakes behind the economics of who gets access to breakthrough treatment. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A wonderful good morning to you. Today we continue with the topic of biotechnology and the future of medicine. We want to look together at what biotechnology actually is and what the future of medicine looks like, and tomorrow we’ll continue with health technologies, so we can take on a few different perspectives here too. Today, from the angle of biotechnology, what falls under it, what comes to mind for you on the topic, what developments you might have observed through the media and so on. We can bring in various things here and consider what fits under it. To start, I’ve brought a definition from the internet to spark some first thoughts about what might fall under this, that we can pick up and then gladly step into an exchange together. So, what is biotechnology? I found a definition on academics.de under the keyword biotechnology. It says, biotechnology is a subfield of the biosciences, or life sciences. It’s an application-oriented cutting-edge technology at the interface of biology, medicine, chemistry, and engineering sciences. Maybe that as an introduction, so that with the term biotechnology, you know which areas fall under it, so to speak — biology, medicine, chemistry, and engineering sciences. And then we can simply approach this together. It’s not at all about being an expert in the field — every one of us has certainly followed or picked up on one thing or another over the past years through the media or similar, whether that’s a newspaper article or whatever. And we can pick that up too and gladly talk about it in exchange, does that actually fall under this or not. So, as I said, you don’t need to be an expert here, it’s first about gathering various aspects together and seeing what actually falls under this, and then, with a view to the future of medicine, considering where the whole thing is developing, or whether we can already draw conclusions about which direction the journey is heading in overall. And with that, you’re very, very warmly invited to join again today and step into the exchange, so we can see together where the journey takes us in the room today, in order to continue tomorrow, quite generally, with health technologies. Just a quick reminder again, the room is recorded the entire time, and anyone who joins automatically agrees that this also gets published. We have three small room rules for anyone joining for the first time today — a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least a sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason, or can’t because of background noise or similar, is welcome to use the chat to contribute that way instead. And with that, I’ll mute myself and see who’d like to be the first to step into the exchange with me this morning.
And you all, feel free to be brave — as I said, you don’t need to be experts in the field, we’re just picking up on various things. Let me throw in a few keywords, I think you’ve certainly heard about these — things like mRNA vaccines, genetic engineering, maybe plant grafting. Some of you might not know what falls under that, but we can look at that together too. So just come in with various thoughts, so we can get a start going, and I’m sure that through the various thoughts you bring in on this or that, further impulses will come from others relatively quickly too. A wonderful good morning, dear Layla — what are your first thoughts on the topic?
Yes, I think everyone has respect for this topic — me too, Yasemin. And first I’d like to wish you a wonderful good morning too. My thoughts on the topic are, this doesn’t just sound complicated, it’s also loaded with a lot of responsibility, especially with mRNA — oh god, that was this mRNA vaccine, if I remember correctly. That’s a very big hope for me, for example, because it might be able to help with multiple sclerosis, the disease. So here we have, again, I have to quote Hans Jonas again, on the one hand we have the accumulation of consequences, what happens when we do things. And the other side is, of course, it can have an incredibly great power to work against illnesses. And honestly, for me, as someone affected — when you get diagnosed with an incurable illness and doctors basically tell you, there’s nothing we can do except reduce your immune system so it stops overreacting, which means you’re susceptible to other illnesses too — you’re grateful for every glimmer of hope. That’s what came to mind for me. And with genetic engineering too, I thought, we have fields, you don’t have to be sick for this — if you look at seeds now, they’re already being modified. There was a report about this once, I think, where some had genetically modified seeds and others didn’t, and it goes in that direction, and there’s a company, I don’t remember what it was called, Mons-something, that even buys the rights to the seeds. And I thought, seriously, you can buy the genetic code of a modified seed? And then farmers have to buy it again every year. Crazy how you can turn everything into a business. That’s what comes to mind, Yasemin.
Yes, very, very cool, thank you, thank you so much. And that’s already quite a lot we can use to shape this introduction together. On the one hand, mRNA — I could imagine there are quite different opinions or attitudes toward that. And we’re immediately right there, which is also why this aspect fits today’s room title, “Future of Medicine” — we’re immediately right in the middle of illnesses. You just said, as someone affected by an incurable illness, there’s immediately an emotion attached, a hope. And that’s also used in the context of cancer research and so on — so these are the glimmers of hope regarding illnesses that previously maybe had few or no other prospects, with a new technology that can be located under this umbrella of biotechnology, whether that’s mRNA or other technologies behind it, which stir up hope on the one hand and, on the other hand, also leave a lot of room for critical consideration. You just mentioned, for example, gene modifications, especially with seeds and so on — that of course also applies to mRNA and all the discussions there have been in recent years, especially very recently. In the context of the Covid vaccine, we all somehow experienced that too, regardless of how deep we are into the topics or whether we’re able to judge them. I don’t think judging is really the primary point here, but really just to look, with this overarching theme Pioneering Spirit with Brain, at what’s actually out there, in which directions there are changes, what that means for us individually, then from a business perspective, and on a societal level, and to open up various perspectives here, in order to create a first approach to the topic at all. I can totally relate to the respect for the topic of biotechnology — it sounds really, really complex at first, and it certainly is too. But similar to when we talk about topics like AI or blockchain or whatever, here too it’s first important to bring this curiosity, to say, okay, I’ll just approach the topic and look from various perspectives at what it actually means, or what all falls under it. Especially with this aspect of gene modification, plant grafting comes to mind for me too in this context. I hadn’t engaged with this topic myself beforehand very much, but I had the opportunity, as part of a piece of market research, to become part of that, and found it really exciting. Maybe first as a term definition, also as an impulse for anyone who doesn’t know what plant grafting is, what’s behind it, I’ve also brought a definition, from the site “Mein schöner Garten.” It says, grafting is an important method for propagating trees and shrubs, colloquially also called “grafting.” The principle is that two plant parts with different genetic material get joined together and grow together into a new plant. And you don’t just do this with plants, plant, it can also be fruit, vegetables, or anything else. So there are really diverse variants and possibilities here, and above all, what maybe not everyone necessarily knows, is that this is actually already used intensively — it’s not something that’s currently being researched and might come in ten years, but we often don’t notice at all, if we don’t engage with the topics, that it’s actually already running in the background. And one of the arguments, for example, for why this is used, is that you get plants, vegetables, and so on that are bigger, more valuable, or counteracting monocultures is one argument that’s brought in here too. It’s about climate protection, which flows in here too, and so on, various things. And the interesting thing about this market research thing I got to be part of was that a company, not in Germany, internationally, relatively far away — I don’t want to give details, because of course all of that has to be treated confidentially as part of this market research — but the direction is relatively exciting, namely it was really about looking at, researching, how far along is the willingness already to buy something and use it in your own kitchen or living room for yourself, privately. So that you wouldn’t even need a garden or similar anymore, but could actually grow it in a small setup, because it takes up so little space, right in your own kitchen — though “growing” isn’t really the right word anymore. Maybe I’ll just throw that in as an impulse, to see, is this even interesting to people, and so on. And I find that really exciting, because when we learn about what’s being worked on here, we might get an idea, for example, of what our kitchens could look like in the future, or something like that. Layla, what do you say about that?
I was just thinking to myself, Yasemin, you know, I don’t want to always play devil’s advocate, I don’t want to be the one every time who, when you say how great all of this is, comes with a “yes, but.” And there are companies that buy seeds, and if a farmer does that without buying that seed, because he has to buy it every year, in America for example — I saw a documentary about this once — and even if it’s the case that, through the wind, these plants could grow on his field, he has a problem. And I looked into medicine and thought, oh, you know, but it’s always like that. And now the question is, how do I make money with that, or not? In China, I think, there was a case where the doctor got paid if the patient was healthy, and I thought, yes, and how much does that cost then? And why are there always economic interests behind it? And yes, I do understand it too, because work went into it. And what you just described with the kitchen — one thing, we do urban gardening, that’s been a topic for a very, very long time. I’m in the big city too and now have a raised bed somehow. If I could do that in my kitchen, growing vegetables despite that, I’d find that great. And we do need to keep finding more possibilities, because suddenly these gravel gardens have become a thing, and I think, that’s not necessarily good for our flora and fauna. We keep worrying about the bees — we like the honey, but we keep worrying about it. But it’s just not conducive to have gardens like that. But it does mean, and this is the point, to sum things up a bit, because of the changed environment we need to find other options that also have to do with changing nature, where we might not be able to estimate the consequences. But our environment is changing too, and if you live in a city, you need a different option. That’s why I found that really interesting, for example.
Yes, lots of ideas, you notice, the fireworks are active.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And yes, the exciting thing about this, ultimately, is that there really are always these different sides, regardless of, or independent of, which side we look from, just as we can also open up the downsides. And we can open up these downsides in every area — whether we take mRNA now and talk about modified genes and so on. And I find it interesting to maybe also pay attention to, or observe, how do I personally react to that? For example, when we talk about plants or food or something like that, what emotions, feelings do I have there, what gets triggered in me? And at the same time, when it comes to aspects like health aspects, we just brought up, if these are incurable illnesses or something, and that stirs up hope at the same time, how do I feel about that, and how does that change, even though there could again be various perspectives I could take here? And I find that really exciting too, to handle this mindfully myself, depending on which example we pick up, how I react to it emotionally. And then, quite deliberately and consciously, to step into another perspective too, to see what happens then, if I look at it from a different angle. And with that I’d like to warmly welcome Marc at our side this morning too. Marc, what do you say about the topic, do you have further examples, or would you like to jump in directly?
No, I don’t want to bring further examples, and I’d like to open up a completely different field of view, neither as a biologist nor as a doctor, because what bothers me is, I always try to look at what does this do to me, what does this do to our future, and what does this do to our prosperity. And Layla just said, change is needed — it definitely is, in politics. As far as I know, in this field of medicine, and also cancer research, and everything to do with biotechnology, digital data plays a central role. And I was totally surprised when I learned that BioNTech — I knew BioNTech had bought a British company, but I hadn’t looked into it further. If you dig deeper, BioNTech bought the company InstaDeep for 400 million euros. What do they do? They actually don’t do anything with biology at first — InstaDeep’s core business is AI, specifically they work on special programs that find solutions where normal computers fail. And if we know that digitalization is a central component in this new field, both for medicine and for biology, of where we’re heading — and if you then notice that companies are moving away, and we also know where Germany stands in digitalization, then what goes through my head first isn’t, what advantages does this bring me with biology or medicine, but simply, how does our society, our prosperity change, do even more companies move away, and how do we live at some point then? Not life in the sense of the advantage this technology brings me, but what happens, where does it move to — and we see that in the automotive industry, we’ve already had that, and now in biotechnology and also in medicine, and those are questions that occupy me first, and then, in the next point, I’d also like to get into what advantages this brings us — but that was first the business perspective on things.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And ultimately it comes down to the complexity of the topics, self-contained at first, and then also the connections into other areas, and then looking at the effects too, from various perspectives. Now you said you’ve taken the business perspective for now — please go ahead and continue too, dear Marc, before we bring in Jürgen, also regarding the advantages you see?
Yes, the advantages I see — I always strongly call on politics and society there too. In China, for example, one of the technologies we’ll have is CRISPR, I hope I’m pronouncing that right, the CRISPR technology. There it’s possible to cut DNA strands at a predetermined location and modify them in a targeted way. Do I like that? Do I think that’s great? No. Will it happen? Yes. Everything that’s possible, everything that will be technically possible, will happen. Whether we want it or not, it will simply happen. And in China there was already an attempt — this is now, this isn’t scientifically verified, I checked again — in China there was also genetic manipulation on babies. The search term for that is “designer babies of the future.” But it wasn’t about blue eyes or blond hair, it was an attempt to make children resistant to HIV in the future. That’s a great thing. But in Germany, as far as I know, if my research is correct, this CRISPR technology is still banned — which also speaks to why important companies then move their research to the US or to China.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And then, of course, connected to that, we can also open up ethical, moral aspects and discuss those on another level too. Also against the backdrop of, especially with all of this, on the one hand there are, for example, life-extending measures, and on the other hand, if we intervene here and, ultimately, in inverted commas, have healthier babies, more robust babies or whatever you want to call it, as offspring — then of course the question arises, what happens, if we keep intervening here regarding the world’s population, we could go further and ask, will there be difficulties with food at some point, then the circle closes again, then you could say, well, that’s exactly why we need things like plant grafting and so on, because otherwise at some point we’ll have the problem of not being able to keep up naturally anymore. So we can really open up a lot, a lot of aspects and perspectives here. Before we continue directly, I’d like to bring in Jürgen and then Sabine too, to see what other aspects come in here, and then we can draw cross-connections too. Jürgen, a wonderful good morning.
Good morning, dear Yasemin, good morning everyone in the room. There were two triggers that compelled me to come up on stage now — first, the statement “we need change,” and second, your statement, dear Marc, “it will come.” We could resist that, try to resist it, it’s going to be justified, because we’re talking about science, and science exists precisely through this state of being driven, of curiosity, of always venturing into new territory. And this new territory, thanks to your intro, dear Yasemin, struck me, because as an absolute layperson in this field, you mentioned it’s about a networking of biology, chemistry, medicine, and engineering science. I won’t presume to make a judgment here, but the doctors of the past probably weren’t necessarily, and I’ll formulate it this way, involved in such a broad field of tension of different disciplines, different specializations, which, through, and I’ll take this away with me, through this biotechnology, is basically a prerequisite for generating scientific progress at all. And that brings me to the second point that’s been making me suspicious for quite a while. And that’s why I said, we don’t need change, because change is coming, dear Marc, thanks to your statement, because we’re talking about science, change is coming. What we need is adaptation. And that’s always the ancient motivation and pioneering spirit of a Darwin, with his “survival of the fittest,” where fittest should be understood not as the strongest and smartest, but the one who can best adapt. So, to make a long story short, my loop — if we, as humans, with this, we’re the only species that’s cognitively capable of establishing such networks and generating a benefit from it, but on the other hand also provoking dangers — if we, in this subfield, keep progressing further, this is my personal opinion, but the rest of our environment, our nature, and actually also sociology, societal, cultural foundations, which differ around this world, if they don’t develop at the same pace as us, or in a research direction, then this entire system falls apart. Mind you, that’s my opinion. And on your example with the CRISPR technology, I read something about that recently too, Marc, I don’t know if you’re referring to the same article. I just want to briefly share this, for better or worse — it’s about a research project that a former employee of Elon Musk, who’s now gone independent, is pursuing, where he’s able, via mini chips implanted in the brain, based on manipulated gene strands, to enable us in the future to communicate with each other without any device, just with the status of this chip — we’re talking about hair-thin instruments, nothing dramatic — and basically like how we use a phone today and messenger services, all of that runs via the brain, and, and this is the extraordinary thing, the whole thing gets controlled by our brain, and from the outside it’s not recognizable at all with whom I’m communicating, and the whole process basically stays within our brain’s control. For me, to conclude, sorry if this took a bit longer, but it basically runs, Harari wrote a very remarkable book about Homo Deus, I recommend everyone read it, Homo Deus, who, basically through his scientific capabilities, we, at some point, arrive at outmaneuvering God and determining how much longer we live, or rather the clear goal is to make life infinite. And we’re on that path, because we’re already cyborgs — through artificial heart valves, artificial veins, and other devices that replace body parts, and the development is heading in the same direction. In summary, and above all, my question is, do we want that, even if we can do it? Thanks for listening for so long.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And here, of course, the question arises, do we want that? And on the other hand, I’d like to bring in another question too. I mean, if we just look historically, it’s also the case, if we look at how long people used to live — a lot has happened in the field of medicine too, which has led to us living at least twice as long today as many, many years ago. And the question arises here too, we look at that with a certain matter-of-factness, and the question for me is also whether the question “do we want this” also has to do with the fact that, per se, first, this is change, we ask ourselves a lot of questions, which might well be legitimate, and at the same time develop resistance, because it might be foreign to us, because it’s novel, similar to other areas too. Because if we talked about other things now, other developments that have taken place in medicine, through surgeries, for example, or insulin, or whatever, those are also life-extending measures — many of us today consider these so self-evident that we wouldn’t even question them. In other places, we open up these discussions. So here too, looking at what this actually has to do with, or is there maybe also a difference between what’s been done so far and the dimension of where this is heading now? So it could well be that we can also make a distinction here and say, yes, but in the past it was up to point XYZ, what’s happening now is a whole different dimension, because — but I think it’s also really important to look more closely here at what’s actually happening. Is it a human reaction of resistance or something similar coming up here, because I’m dealing with something foreign again? Or is it legitimate to really look at this differently, because it actually has a different dimension than before? And with that I’d like to bring in Sabine first, and then I’ll give you the opportunity to draw cross-connections too. Sabine, a wonderful good morning.
A wonderful good morning. Yes, what Jürgen just said, well, the question is, what I’m thinking now, he said, do we want this — the question is, in the end, can we defend ourselves against it if the flow keeps going, so as not to be left behind? But that’s not what I wanted to say. I wanted to briefly reference BioNTech too — I heard that a bit differently, that with the English acquisition, that’s one thing, but the other thing is that I believe they want to relocate part of it to England, because in Germany they’re hitting limits with their research, because we’re not as far along here yet, or aren’t allowed to permit as much as they’re allowed to permit in England, and of course, with their cancer treatment, they want to progress as quickly as possible to save people. And a friend of mine has cancer right now, she’s already gone through two stages, and she’s currently getting a medication from America that’s already approved there but not yet approved here. She’s now gotten permission to import it, or to get it — there’s a medication that costs 30,000 euros, and she needs it often because nothing else works on her anymore. And when you talk to someone like that, the boundaries disappear, because she says, this is her only chance. And she’s not going to think anymore about whether it’s maybe otherwise good for the body or not. I think we need to distinguish here a bit — do I want this in my everyday food? Or is it maybe a chance to still save my life? That’s what I wanted to say in that direction. Otherwise, yes, I think it’ll continue, we can’t close ourselves off to it. And it’s really incredible, what Jürgen just told us. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And here too we can, especially since BioNTech has come up several times now, remind ourselves that there could of course be many, many more background reasons why they decided to do that — could involve tax reasons, could involve staff costs, and so on and so on, so it could be many things. So what we get, or consume, via the media doesn’t necessarily have to be exclusively what’s actually going on in the background, what the main criteria actually were — certainly it wasn’t just one criterion that led to this, but various aspects came together here, and we won’t find all of them in the media either, there’s probably a lot more behind it. I’ve seen that Layla wants to speak, and then gladly Jürgen too. Layla.
Yes, well, Yasemin, I’m honestly a bit, I’m looking at my feelings right now, and I’ll tell you honestly, I’m a bit scared right now. I’m a bit shocked, and I’m sad. And not because the statements were somehow completely out of place — not at all, these are all well-founded statements that have been made here. But this really got to me — I’m an ethics teacher, in 2000 my teacher showed me a film called “Gattaca” in ethics class back then. It was about the designer human, and there was this young man who had a heart defect, and there were only these perfect people left, and he still wanted to somehow — I can recommend it to anyone, because it was like a thought experiment that we’re now very close to. If we think about it now — I have friends, for example, whose child has Trisomy 21, it’s great that children shouldn’t get HIV anymore, but if we then exclude all illnesses, how do we do that? Today, fewer and fewer children with Trisomy 21 are being born, because women are also advised during pregnancy, please don’t have this child, or they’re advised against the pregnancy — these are things I’ve really heard, please verify this, but there are fewer and fewer children born with Down syndrome, because of course it’s a hereditary condition, where people say, well. There are even gynecologists who say — I saw this recently, I saw a talk from a psychiatrist, and he said, well, there actually are gynecologists who advise people that two people with ADHD shouldn’t have children, and I thought, okay, that’s intense. And I just listened to this, and I wanted to briefly correct a statement, because it was misunderstood. We’re changing our environment, and that’s why we need changes — we changed it, industrialization, and what’s come from that. When Marc was speaking, I thought, okay, what happens if this gets stored for years with BioNTech now? I’m 44, I got the diagnosis four years ago, and I’m just one example of this — there are a lot of people in my situation who then, maybe don’t get help because of economic interests, and that’s very, very frightening. And when Jürgen said, well, we try to, in philosophy there’s this view too, we try to change something and then we want to play God — okay, you can think about that however you want, but here too, I got stuck on Sabine’s example, because I experienced exactly that, or something similar. First, the medication I take, or should take, to suppress my immune system, costs over 1,000 euros — you can produce it for 120 euros, so 1,200 euros a year, but it costs 1,000 euros a month. That there are economic interests behind that, I find, well, whether that’s reprehensible or not, you can argue about that, to what extent you should make money with something like that. But I don’t know how big this ethics council is, because there are lives at stake. And I can only say, when I got my diagnosis, I changed doctors, because my neurologist wanted to go straight into escalation therapy with me, and I said, I’m not doing that, and I said, I’m switching doctors — and then she really told me on the phone, well, and now I don’t get to reap the fruits of my labor. And I was like, excuse me? Yes, I don’t get to reap the fruits of my labor. And I said, I’m sorry, but this is about me having received a diagnosis of an incurable disease. Yes, but MS patients, I’m a very lucrative patient, let’s just say it like it is. That’s why I just want to say, in all these discussions, we mustn’t forget the people behind them. And even if businesses move away, if this active ingredient’s research doesn’t get advanced for years somehow — also what we’re allowed to do and what we’re not allowed to do — but there are people behind that. And when people say to me, I don’t get to reap the fruits of my labor, and I understand all the economic interests in the world, but for me, my life collapsed in the moment she told me there’s a lesion on my breathing center and my breathing could stop at any time. And that was hard enough. And I find that, I don’t know — yes, I’m the devil’s advocate. The film “Gattaca,” watch it. But if we develop in that direction, I don’t know if we have to be affected first ourselves. I also find it difficult when companies buy plants and then sue farmers because their plants grow on the field because they got carried over by the wind, and they always had to buy from them. I find that a bit strange, and then I’d rather not play God. Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. Jürgen, you wanted to add too.
Yes, thank you, dear Yasemin, but I have to go back a step now to Sabine’s remarks — thank you, dear Sabine, for your remarks. And I’ll also raise myself up as devil’s advocate and say, I disagree, because you said, Sabine, essentially, we can’t do anything about it, it’s going to come. And I say, there are always two sides, and I disagree with that. And I’m reminded, I found an anchor, dear Yasemin, at the event, when was that, the day before yesterday, about this Clean Management, Clean Leadership, where I remembered a trio that I think fits quite well in this context too — a trio that concretizes Clean Leadership, and one of them, for this leadership, one position was profit orientation, and that’s without doubt also necessary in our case with biotechnology — otherwise, people have to live off something. The other two positions were, on one hand, based on an agreed set of values, and meaning-making. And that’s not meant to justify my statement, but for me that’s the anchor of hope, and if you look back at the history of medicine, it was similar with many other developments — that’s the anchor of hope for me, that I say, both on the basis of a canon of values and in the question of meaning-making, which is given to us by a science, that doesn’t have to mean the consumer, who basically ensures the company’s profit orientation and its existence, also accepts it. So I just want to signal to you, we humans have this possibility, to say no too. We have the possibility to question why and for what, which no other species has. And I’ll point out in this context, we also have the possibility to say no at some point. Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And on the one hand, I think this also fits very well with what Layla said, because if we pick up these three pillars from this Clean Leadership context, values, meaning-making, profit orientation, we can basically establish that it’s about a certain balance — always thinking in balances here too, meaning we’re constantly dealing with various technologies, whatever that is, whether that’s in the medical field or other fields, we always have various chains of consequences. We could, for example, ask ourselves the question, well, but aren’t we also, in inverted commas, creating new illnesses, for example, through the fact that medicine and similar things are advancing, or through the fact that our food is being altered in some way, whatever that is, whether that’s genetic engineering, food coloring, or something else. And on the other hand, that means, on the one hand, it could well be that through all these changes and developments we have here, we’re not just making progress but also a kind of regression, in the sense that we’re creating new illnesses through this, for which, viewed in a cycle, new medicine is needed again, and then another step forward is taken, and so on. And then we have this aspect of being affected, which I can very, very well relate to. I experienced this myself in my family, when my brother got cancer back then and fought against it for five years and lost that fight. I know what fears and worries he had, and he also left behind a family, and what that meant for him — I can totally understand it when you have no alternatives or similar, that in this desperation you hope for anything. And he also took part in various studies, just in the hope that it might help somehow. And whether that’s cancer, other illnesses, or maybe — I once saw a documentary on Netflix where parents decided, the father a scientist himself and the brother also a scientist, who decided, their child, which had an incurable illness at the moment, but in the hope that something might come in the future, and they were researching that themselves too, to bring about developments, decided to, so to speak, freeze the child and put it to sleep, you could say, in the hope that, whether in their lifetime or afterward, with the corresponding possibilities that science had created in the meantime, they’d find a way to give life back to it, so to speak. And here we’re operating on different levels, and it makes sense to pick up this complexity too. I think it also makes sense to look more closely at such, maybe there are even more aspects than just values, meaning-making, profit orientation, you can look at that more closely individually for yourself too, but it seems to also be about a certain balance here — also against the backdrop of looking at various aspects and factors, and this tension. And then we can open this up too, for example — you’ve certainly heard about this or followed it or experienced it, we haven’t even talked about the pharmaceutical industry yet, something like that too. On the one hand, it has to be about profit, in inverted commas, for a company too. On the other hand, we’re currently experiencing, for example, that medicine or similar has become harder to access, even with very simple, everyday medications, for example — not because they cost a lot, but quite the opposite, because companies aren’t earning enough money from them, so they get discontinued. And suddenly there are supply bottlenecks and procurement problems, even though we’re not even talking about medicine that’s supposed to cure something highly complex or similar. Up to the discussion, I don’t know who’s been following it, because something like this often happens behind closed doors — I find it really exciting right now to follow what’s happening in our politics, which I also find very reprehensible, honestly. We, in inverted commas, I’ll say this quite provocatively, we get distracted by discussions that maybe aren’t even that relevant, so we don’t notice other things happening in the background. One of the biggest, most decisive things happening in the background right now, and this really gets me worked up, is what’s being hammered out with the WHO right now, namely that the WHO, the World Health Organization, will in the future be able to declare pandemics without clear regulations, without clear framework conditions, and so on, and that all countries signing this agreement submit to it, and everything — if a lockdown gets declared, the countries have to comply. That means you’re really handing over the power to make decisions for an entire country. And Germany has already waved this through. It’s unbelievable what’s happening here, I think. And that quickly brings us back to, shouldn’t we also say no at certain points here too? And it’s important to be attentive here, to observe these developments attentively, and to intervene where necessary. Of course each of us can only make a limited contribution, but viewed as a community, we can make a contribution, if we go into education about it, if we look at it mindfully and critically. That doesn’t mean certain developments aren’t okay, but to what degree, and what price do we pay? And what happens if the wrong person sits up there and makes wrong decisions, and we no longer have any way to act against it? So maybe that too as an impulse to bring in. Marc, I saw you’d like to jump in, and then gladly the others too, if you want — Marc, Layla, then Jürgen, and then we’ll move into the closing round for today. Marc.
Yes, I wanted to add something too, this is also an important topic that I only found out about by chance — that antibiotics are important, none of you will dispute that. Currently there are only four major pharmaceutical companies left worldwide that even work on developing new antibiotics. And we eat pork and beef and whatever else, and in the food chain, antibiotics also get used a lot, so that pigs grow faster, for example. That means, when we’re in the hospital and really need that stuff, we’re resistant. But right now, more money is simply made with other technologies, so the pharmaceutical companies of course also know antibiotics are important, but no research is being done into new antibiotics, because there are simply markets, medical markets and biotechnology markets, that are much, much more interesting, so the research gets discontinued. That too, just on the topic of profit optimization — what makes sense, what’s beneficial, and where do the profits lie in the future? And I agree with you, dear Yasemin, that nobody in politics dares to say, ultimately the statement is, well, if a relative of yours dies, that’s really tragic, but unfortunately there’s not much money to be made with antibiotics in the future, and that’s just how it is. And that presents us with new challenges here, and I don’t think this will stay limited to antibiotics, we’re observing this in other places too. And that’s why it’s important to look at what we can counteract, or how to counteract it.
Layla.
Yes, what can I say? Marc, you always leave me speechless in the end. I thought internally, yes, he’s got a point there. And I’ve engaged with that too — why do we have resistant germs, because we keep ingesting them through our food. That brings me to the point, Yasemin, that I wanted to raise, where you said, well, maybe illnesses arise from that. And many of you, I don’t know if you know this, I know it because I have to eat halal — I know that the substance E120 is derived from the scarlet cochineal insect. It was later produced synthetically, then it became E124. For anyone who thinks they don’t consume it, it’s in lipstick, in vegetarian sausage substitutes, in drinks, in candy, in desserts. I recently watched something from the Datteltäter — they had a show about halal that I found really, really nice, they also won a Grimme Award, that’s why I dare say the name now. Anyway, what I wanted to say is, as a Muslim I’m not really supposed to eat this. But I don’t necessarily recognize E120. E124, synthetically produced, is now being listed again as a natural dye, E120 — is that positive? Everyone can think about that for themselves. The AfD is getting worked up about insects coming into our food — they put a lot of energy into that, because it’s very disgusting and gross. But we’ve been doing this for many, many years — if you have E120 in something, you’re already eating scarlet insects. And who do we have there — the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, who says, it could alter the genetic material — and then, no, it doesn’t alter the genetic material after all, that’s now been established. Long-term studies, I’ll just say, in that context. So I’m out of that discussion, mostly because I mainly eat vegan now, thank god that also spares me some of the religious discussions, which can get quite difficult sometimes. But I wanted to say this because I found it a really, really, really important point of yours, Yasemin — take a close look at what’s already in your food, and take a close look at how that actually looks. And I know, I’m playing the — but I think, well, I’m an ethics teacher, and this is really Hans Jonas, accumulation of — that doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to do anything, but it might mean we simply need to look at things, we don’t have to be affected first ourselves to see the people behind it. And I’m also very sorry, Yasemin, for what happened to you, and something like that is frightening. And when I think about how we do a lot of things because we’re allowed to, and because it takes a long time before a law comes out, that the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment then says, well, it could, but it’s not, so let’s just leave it in, and we’ve maybe been eating scarlet insects the whole time. And now it’s a natural dye — hip hip hooray.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. I don’t want to go too deep into this, because we’ll actually open up a separate room on this topic too, that’s coming, and then we’ll look at it in detail too, all the discussions taking place, down to exactly E124, E120, and so on — there are entire lists of this, you can download them online too. And Ole also says, the dose makes the poison — how much E120 would I have to eat to feel full? So not quite comparable. But as I said, let’s set that aside for now, there’s an extra room planned for that too, also under this umbrella Pioneering Spirit with Brain — meaning we’ll go deeper into it there and look at it more closely from various perspectives. Thank you, thank you so much, Layla, on that. Jürgen.
Yes, sorry, this went a bit off from what I still wanted to note, namely directly on your remarks regarding balance. A really important point for me, because the imbalances that arise through the possibility of these developments, and I’ll name two examples, are actually the reason for this apostrophized saying-no. And that is, and this has always characterized medicine, that it increasingly reinforces existing social and cultural differences, at least for a certain time. Because such a highly developed technology, and here I’m speaking with the voice of many experts, will also, for the foreseeable future, only be available to certain countries, and correspondingly technologically well-equipped countries. And that will establish an immense relationship of dependency, which is nothing other than an imbalance. And the second point, which also falls under the aspect of imbalance, and that’s why I wanted to respond directly to you, dear Yasemin, that you raised the topic of the WHO, which makes me equally speechless — there will also increasingly be an imbalance in the power structure on this globe. And that’s, I’ll repeat myself, the possibility and our responsibility. That has to be said clearly. We also have to stand up and say, not like this. And I’m completely with you there. Thanks for listening.
Wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And I think that especially in the coming week, where we’ll pick up societal aspects again too, to cover the various developments, advances, disadvantages we see, and look at them on this societal dimension too, we’ll then have the opportunity to bring exactly these aspects together again, and pick up and discuss them under certain viewpoints that you just mentioned, Jürgen. I think that’s really important here too, because these topics have different dimensions to look at, and only this way can we look at the complexity and the chain reactions behind it from various perspectives, create awareness, and thereby gain the possibility ourselves to arrive at a certain assessment. Sabine, you wanted to add something too, and then we can move into the closing round — and you can also add your closing word already, so we can run backward today. Yes, gladly, first thank you for the great room. I wanted to say one thing to Jürgen — Jürgen, if earlier, I think we weren’t quite in agreement, but I mean it a bit differently. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t raise your voice. I mean that we’ll probably always, from the technical side, in the end — let’s take the example again with the chip in the head. I mean, today all of us say, hey, that’s really something the devil would do, to even be able to do something like that. But let’s ask ourselves honestly, if at some point we’re not so far that it’s almost trendy to do it, and then you consider, do you join in or not? And I think that’s a bit of the problem. Then a second example — last week we had various events from the chamber of commerce at our trade fair, and there was one on the topic of education, and there was a professor there who teaches the topic of food, super exciting. But in the end I said, yes, this is all great, but how do we actually manage that? Because yesterday we were quickly at McDonald’s, we wanted to try the vegetarian McDonald’s. I can only advise against it, I can tell everyone, please don’t. But if you go in there and look at who’s all there, and then the professor says, well, there’s nothing left for us but the topic of education — there we are again with education. Yes, I say, I can completely understand that. But you always have to be able to move in parallel to raise your voice, to also be consistent with that. That’s what I wanted to say. Otherwise, another great room again. Have a nice day.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And since you just mentioned the topic of education again, I actually hadn’t planned to communicate this, but I’ll just dock in here now, maybe just out of my emotionality right now. I’d already announced at various points and said that something’s being prepared and planned in the background. And that Deep Talk is also there to expand networks, to look around. And that was, from the beginning, a lot of thoughts, a lot of topics that were in the room, and to really develop one thing or another out of this community. Various conversations that have taken place have now come to a result in my assessment — although there are offers for cooperation and so on in various places, some of them are now being declined. I don’t want to go into details, I think it’s enough to just touch on this for now, on the side. But I would like to get into why — because the impact isn’t big enough. I’ve decided, I’ve been thinking about this for two years, about how we can really shape something here that also has an effect, that has an impact, on a societal level, and not just on a small scale, but to use a community, a network, to grow together and achieve things together, not just complain about what’s not working in politics. And especially this education topic is a big topic where a lot gets talked about but little action happens. I’m convinced, this is my belief, that we’re capable of changing things, that we’re capable of tackling things, that we’re capable, as a community, of bringing things into implementation that can have a huge impact. In that sense, a project is now starting in the background. I’ll be reaching out especially to the people, I obviously can’t place everyone, because there are a lot of people I maybe only know from a profile photo in the room, so it’ll be a bit difficult for me to make that assignment. But for the people I can place, where I have the feeling, this fits, this person can help out here, can do various things here, I’ll be seeking out conversations in the coming days, weeks, to get into exchange with you, to open the door for you here, in a community, to give you a few more key facts about what’s coming, what we’re planning. A huge project, which will mean that I’ll be focusing my main attention on this for at least another year, working on certain things in a community team. And that will, at the end of the day, pay into education. We want to create something together here, and I’m really curious — so just look forward to what’s coming. That’s what I can say so far. The starting shot has been fired, the first conversations are already underway, and there are very clear decisions, very clear rejections regarding certain cooperations, but then opening the door again for those partners who’ve shown willingness to do something together, to show other possibilities. And I’m really curious about the coming days, there are some conversations coming up now, what will come of that. And so I’m also hoping, in inverted commas, on this Deep Talk Club community, in all directions, in the networking, and here in a community, to bring one thing or another into implementation, and see what we can tackle ourselves, and not always just wait for change to come from above. We can help steer this change ourselves too. And with that, I’d like to give Marc and Layla the opportunity to speak their closing words too. Marc.
The room today showed me again, with this topic, that there are so, so many things where we say, whoa, that’s complex, I’ll stay out of that, I can’t say anything about that. And that’s why I think it’s important to create clarity on such topics and then maybe take a helicopter perspective, because it also became clear to me that we automatically always touch on feelings — that’s just in our nature. And when we touch on feelings, to ask ourselves at the same time, what does that do to me? Because feelings, in politics and also from whoever we’re facing, not here in this room specifically but generally, people use feelings to set fires — setting fires meaning manipulatively steering us in one direction or another. But in the helicopter perspective, just clarifying things objectively, what’s coming our way, pros and cons — that became clear to me again, how closely everything is connected, how quickly you drift back into this emotional pull. And then a discussion, or generally, always goes in a completely different direction than when you look at opportunities and so on. So the room was a prime example, also of how my brain works, and in which direction that can lead lightning-fast, if it goes into the emotional space.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And it’s also nice when topics trigger us — I’d like to dock onto a message here, someone in the room will be able to relate to this, who messaged me over the weekend. When topics trigger us, when something triggers us, and not just once, something great can come out of that too. And that’s why I also think it’s nice when we, as humans, keep reacting to certain things with emotions, in inverted commas, because that’s often what actually gets things rolling. And that’s why I even find things that might be negative, that annoy us or similar, to also see as a gift, and to look at how I can transform this energy, this negative energy in the first moment, because those are the emotions that run away with us, into a positive force again. And I think that’s wonderful too, and that’s why we’re allowed to see such events as a gift too. Layla.
Yasemin, I wanted to honor your contribution to our education system, because I think what you’re doing there is really, really, really important. And yes, I think that has to be appreciated and really acknowledged, and say, that’s not a given, to do something like that — that’s great, and that’s why I hope it becomes a wonderful project, I hope it becomes really great. I’m an advocate for that too — education is, I don’t know if it’s the most important good, but it’s a high good, and Sabine mentioned it too. So thank you for that. And my closing word is shaped by, Democritus once said, “courage stands at the beginning of action, luck at the end.” So that it’s not just luck at the end — even though we always want to start, and thinking too long isn’t good, thinking is already good. We don’t have a crystal ball we can look into, we’re not there yet, we can only try to estimate the consequences. And I think facts help us quite well with that, and I think science helps us quite well with that too, and education and thinking help us quite well with that. So I’d like to invite everyone to that, and say again, I think what you’re doing there is great.
Yes, amazing, thank you, thank you so much. And I think, to close the room, there’s not much more to add, except that it really was an enrichment again today, looking at the topic with you from various perspectives. You see, it’s relatively reassuring, I think — biotechnology and the future of medicine sounded relatively complex at first, and I find it fantastic which perspectives we managed to open up with a few impulses, a few definitions, and then looking at it from various directions, and where the whole thing went today. Tomorrow will certainly be exciting again too, under the room topic health technologies — what are health technologies, and how do they change our understanding of medicine and our healthcare? That’s what we want to look at tomorrow. So you’re all very, very warmly invited to join again at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning, when we gather various perspectives, examples, and then see what insights we can generate from that, under the overarching theme Pioneering Spirit with Brain. With that, I wish you a great day, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. See you then, ciao.
