ABSTRACT
To discuss the influence of regulatory contexts on the development of the nanotech sector, I draw on a comparative analysis of the development of biotechnology. I take as the origin of my study (like the origin of a graph) the discovery of the three-dimensional double-helix structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953. Although research is a continuous process, and this discovery could not have happened without the previous research that led to it, it is generally considered to be the starting point of the emerging field of biotechnology. At this point of origin, the stakeholders were the scientists involved in the discovery and their supporting institutions. Watson was American and Crick was British, but the discovery was made in England, at Cambridge University. When Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, they were not entrepreneurs; they were scientists. However, they quickly became entrepreneurs—as opposed to other scientists working in labs who did not take the same course of action, they moved on to new structures that would connect them to the market. As it happened, they both found these structures in the U.S.: Crick did brain research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and Watson became director of the molecular-biology lab at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and served as the head of the Human Genome Project.
