Skip to main content

The Golden Helix: Inside Biotech Ventures

Arthur Kornberg Stanford University

This candid narrative by Nobel laureate, Arthur Kornberg, chronicles the saga of a small biotech start-up, the key players, the painstaking development of the perfect product, and the forces affecting its resulting success or failure.

Print Book, ISBN 978-1-891389-19-1, US $27
eBook, eISBN 978-1-938787-21-8, US $20
Copyright 1995
288 pages, Softcover

Summary

This candid narrative by Nobel laureate, Arthur Kornberg, chronicles the saga of a small biotech start-up, the key players, the painstaking development of the perfect product, and the forces affecting its resulting success or failure. Kornberg’s razor-sharp wit and provocative opinions make this book a compelling page turner, whether he is decrying the current fashion in scientific funding or delving into the hotly contested PCR patent trial.

Translated into Chinese and Japanese.


Resources

List of Adoptions

Table of Contents

1. Currents and Eddies in Biotechnology
2. Birth of a Biotech Venture
3. A Scientist Entrepreneur: Alejandro Zaffaroni
4. A Biotech-Driven Pharmaceutical Company
5. Growth of a Biotech Venture
6. The DNAX-Schering-Plough Connection
7. Genentech, Amgen, Chiron, and Regeneron
8. Pros and Cons of Biotech Ventures
Epilog
References
Index

Reviews

“Kornberg’s views on the wellsprings of scientific knowledge are embedded in a smartly written work that will reward readers in academe and industry.”
-Nature

“Anyone fascinated with modern science, particularly biotechnology, will appreciate this book.”
-Choice

“A fascinating adventure into the interworkings of the emerging biotechnology industry and its complex relationship to academic scientists.”
-Leroy Hood, Univ. of Washington

“An engaging and well-written story.”
-Paul Schimmel, MIT

“A fascinating book for anyone who loves science.”
-Hugh D’Andrade

Arthur Kornberg

Arthur Kornberg Stanford University

Arthur Kornberg shared (with Severo Ochoa) the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1959 for his laboratory synthesis of DNA. He is the author of several major books, including DNA Replication, second edition (W.H. Freeman and Company, 1991) and a scientific autobiography, For the Love of Enzymes: the Odyssey of a Biochemist (Harvard University Press, 1989). He is Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

View Profile