For Immediate Release		April 30, 1998

PROFESSOR HAIM HARARI: May I just open this very brief meeting welcoming the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Albert Gore, who is our lucky break on the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel. Mr. Vice President, welcome to the Weizmann Institute, an institute which cannot make up its mind if it is an Israeli institute playing a very important role in the economy of Israel, or an international universal institute probing secrets of nature for all of mankind; an institute which cannot make up its mind if it is a basic research institute, or a place that is happy to make a little bit of money on the side by exploiting commercially some of its inventions. We are home to a graduate school which is recognized as an American school abroad, with 20 percent of the student population in the graduate school being foreigners from all over the world -- and by accident now a dean who is an American- born scientist who is here with us -- Professor Safran. We have a very elaborate network of international connections, first and foremost with the United States, but also with Europe, with the Far East, with Latin America, with the former Soviet Union, and recently, a little bit beginning with the Arab countries which already made peace with Israel, and one can say more and more endlessly, but we are here more to listen to you, Mr. Vice President. We have proposed that there will be a very brief discussion led by you on the topic of how science contributes to modern economies in the age of globalization in which we live, and we will all be honored and delighted to hear your comments as an opening for this debate, and thank you for being with us.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Thank you very much, professor. I am honored to be here, of course, and to be here with my friend, Minister Natan Sharansky, who co-chairs the U.S.-Israeli Commission on Science and Technology. His American counterpart, Secretary Bill Daley is going to visit Israel this October to participate in a program that he and Minister Sharansky have well in hand, and this cooperation in science and technology facilitated by the Commission -- but certainly not limited to the Commission -- is one of the most important cooperative efforts our two countries have together.

I want to thank Donald Sussman, my friend from home, for his generous support of this Institute. I have helped in the past, because of my admiration for the Weizmann Institute, and I want to thank all of those who are present here, Vice President Hanan Alon -- I mentioned him because that position of Vice President should not ever be under-estimated for its importance (laughter) and to all the staff members. I am sensitive there and grateful that you said it was lucky that I have come today, because I was worried that my visit might be equated with the feeling that there is a national holiday everywhere except the Weizmann Institute. But my special gratitude to the members of the staff for their generosity and hospitality here today.

I can't answer your question as to what the true nature of your Institute is. I am told that some of your scientists who specialize in quantum physics have said it's possible to occupy different states simultaneously. Perhaps the Weizmann Institute does this. In this celebration of the Jubilee 50th anniversary I am greatly honored to come to Israel to participate in the ceremonies and during my visit to come here to this world-class institution, to see a work at the cutting-edge of science and technology, and I look forward to my discussion with the scientists who are gathered here, so that we can not only celebrate the achievements of the last 50 years, but look forward to the even greater achievements of the next 50 years.

I truly believe that whatever its true nature, the Weizmann Institute is definitely a prototype and a model for what a scientific organization can develop and create in and of itself. Also, I think it has been demonstrating very ably what science can do to promote progress in the growth of a country. You mentioned this topic of the relationship between science and economic growth. Recent statistics demonstrate how technology has transformed the nation of Israel. High-tech exports have grown by 160 percent just since 1990. That really is a remarkable surge. In 1997 the high- tech sectors accounted for 44 percent of Israel's total exports, and in 1997 those same high-tech sectors expanded by 25 percent, that in a difficult year when the nation's entire GDP grew by less than two percent. So clearly, the large role played by high- technology is expanding and, as mentioned, this institute has been a model for bi-national cooperation from more than 25 years of our Bi-National Science Foundation, the BIRD Foundation, the BARD Foundation, and the U.S.-Israel Science and Technology Commission, headed on the Israeli side by Minister Sharansky, have funded cooperative ventures at Weizmann and elsewhere in Israel and in the United States, and we have shown how we can make more progress together than either of us can make separately. The remarkable solar gas turbine hybrid generator that we saw from the overlook is an example of this remarkable progress. Many have been touched by the results of this cooperation.

Let me just make one additional point before opening the discussion. One of our administration's top priorities in the United States is an initiative that we call the "Next Generation Internet." High speed networks capable of supporting revolutionary applications such as telemedicine and distance learning and virtual laboratories, or co-laboratories, as some call them. Internet II, an organization representing more than one hundred twenty of America's leading research universities, is a key part of the Next Generation Internet. I understand that Internet II's leaders would be delighted to pursue collaboration with their Israeli counterparts, and I hope that this possibility for collaboration, and this exciting project which I am announcing here today, will be followed by the same fruitful, cooperative work that has characterized this Institute.

So, I am here to listen to you, and learn from you, and whoever would like to go first, I'm all ears.

PROFESSOR HARARI: Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for your kind words. Just a comment at the beginning, that when the computer network combining all the universities of the world started under the name of Bitnet, about fifteen, eighteen years ago, Israel was the second country outside of the United States to join it, and the Weizmann Institute was the first institution in Israel to join it, and we more than welcome your invitation to try to repeat this exercise on Internet II.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: I am quite aware of that history, and that is the reason for coming here to make this announcement. The Next Generation Internet, for those who are not familiar with it, will have speeds one thousand times that of the current Internet, and this of course will make possible applications that will be quite stunning.

PROFESSOR HARARI: Perhaps Professor Mirelman who is in charge of our technology transfer projects, Vice President for technology transfer, would care to say something about the impact of basic science on commercially interesting results.

PROFESSOR MIRELMAN: As Professor Harari said, we have a tradition at this Institute dating back to Chaim Weizmann who was the President of Israel and also President of the Institute, that if we have breakthroughs in science and inventions we should have the mechanisms of how to bring those initiatives initial results, so that the industry and society may benefit from those discoveries. In the Institute this tradition has gone on for many years, and we have a lot of examples of very successful results that became important products. Just to give you a very few examples: two of the drugs that are for multiple sclerosis are inventions of the Weizmann Institute, and we have here Professor Ruth Arnon who is one of the inventors together with Professor Sela, and she is going to receive also the prestigious Wolf Prize for this achievement. Other inventions that came out of this Institute, for example, the "smart cards" that are used for the encryption and the decoding of tv transmissions from satellites that in the United States also enter direct tv are inventions of Professor Adi Shamir from the Institute. These inventions have turned about to be important products and through the workings of our technology transfer arm we join together with industry in producing them. The Ministry of Industry participates because usually our inventions are at a very early stage, and therefore they need the nurturing of both the research scientists, developing companies making stock.

On the occasion of Israel's anniversary, we have asked our accounting firms to make a survey of what is the impact of the products that came directly from the science of the Weizmann Institute. In 1997 products that were originated from research, sold in the world for 600 million dollars. We have been active in forming more than 13 start-up companies. We have an industrial park which is adjacent to the Weizmann Institute which has more than 70 companies, of which many of them are developing inventions and breakthroughs that originated in the Weizmann. So this close relation between basic research, and whenever there is from the basic research an invention and how it gets quickly transferred to those who are knowledgeable and expert in developing into products, this is one of the things that is very well ingrained in our Institute. And we think that this also proves that long-term investment in basic research finally gives out results. If we look at, for example like you do in the United States, with the fantastic NIH program and how it has spawned fantastic bio- technology industry in the United States. So investment at the research level certainly pays. The investment, though, is long- term, and this is what we all have to remember.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: We are proposing an increase of two-thirds in our NIH budget over the next five years, within the balanced budget, and we certainly agree with your view that attention must be paid to the transfer mechanisms of how to move these new developments into industry quickly. I know Minister Sharansky has given a great deal of thought to this as well, because I have heard you speak of it.

MINISTER SHARANSKY: I don't want to take much of your time, but I will give one figure. My Ministry's special Chief Scientist program is financing up to 50 percent of all R&D industrial research, and for every dollar that is put to this program, Israel is getting ten dollars in exports. So that is the best way to support export-oriented high tech industry, and in fact because of this program, it became much more possible to move on to academic institutes. Also because of the so-called Magnet Program, which is financing research, on the condition that there is cooperation between institutions like Weizmann Institute, and industrial groups. And then the project we just heard, is one of those which is financed with this program. So....

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: And one of the partners is Boeing.

MINISTER SHARANSKY: Yes, well, and the other level of cooperation is the international program or commission and the other partner is Boeing. So, you can say that just at this moment we are fighting with the Financial Ministry for increasing the budget of the Chief Scientists program. So, the decision can be made....

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Are you winning?

MINISTER SHARANSKY: Well, with your help maybe. (Laughter!).

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Well, perhaps these reporters here will make some sense of these discussions.

Professor Arnon, you're an immunologist, correct?

ARNON: Yes, that's true.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: What was the key insight that led to your breakthrough on muscular dystrophy - I'm sorry, multiple sclerosis?

ARNON: The research on this project started approximately thirty years ago. When it started -- and this I would like to emphasize the point that Dr. Mirelman made -- it started as a completely basic research on an esoteric problem that had seemed like it had no application. But we were trying to study the mechanism of a disease that is an experimental model for multiple sclerosis. But from the beginning, we saw that in addition to what we had anticipated, we had a substance that can suppress the disease, and immediately we changed direction in order to develop it into an applied project. So the insight was quite a long time ago, but the follow-up took a very long time.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Our scientists often remind government financing committees that basic research is essential to the process of discovery and innovation. And sometimes those in the political system will launch bitter criticisms of public funds being used for some line of basic research that does not have an immediately recognizable connection to some product that can be solved. But invariably, it is basic research that has led to a serendipitous discovery which makes possible whole new avenues of inquiry that are immensely useful in business and industry, in medicine, and in every facet of life. So your reminder is a particularly powerful one, because it shows how basic research thirty years ago, has led to a breakthrough for multiple sclerosis.

PARTICIPANT: If I may return back for a second to the Internet Project. My own field which is molecular biology, is in the middle of a revolution which is that most of the research is moving from the classical question-oriented research, into research where accumulating systematic data, mainly through the Internet, and through the databases is one of the major factors in moving ahead in the research. And I think the most --three topics that I can think of that will lead this research of bio-technology and high- tech bio into the next ten years, which are drug and genomic design, and drug development, gene therapy and I shall call it individualized therapy. Where people will have their own private research health program. And all those items deeply imbedded the basic research and, if one thinks that this will be carried out alone by the industry, it's a big mistake, because without the research institutions, without the basic research, all the benefits of these three items which will definitely be a big industry and create many jobs, will not materialize. Of course the prognosis is that people are living longer and longer, and old people usually have more resources, and are willing -- and will be willing-- to pay a lot of money in order to assure a disease-free aging. And this will put another large sum of money into the personalized health insurance programs.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Some of our scientists have gone so far as to say that the combination of the Internet at high speed, and Supercomputers have created a whole new way to generate knowledge. Since the days of the Ancient Greeks we have been accustomed to two forms of creating knowledge: inductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning, including the method you referred to, making observations and conducting experiments, and then attempting to fit the data into models that explain the world. But, with this vast increase in computational power, it's now possible, as you say, to collect many billions of points of data and fit them into models that simulate ways the world might look and then test those simulations to see if they are valid or not and this, correct me if I am wrong, this is the method you are now using to accelerate the discovery of new drugs.

PARTICIPANT: That is why it is so important that, as you say, Israel will be part of this new Internet program because we are so dependent on our very quick and interactive contact with our colleagues all over the world.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Well, the significance of the Internet II of the Next Generation Internet, at a thousand times the speed of the current Internet, is that for those participating institutions there is remote access possible to high performance computers that are specializing in a variety of different avenues of research including most of the ones that are underway here at this Institute.

PARTICIPANT: I would like to go back to more general questions and a somewhat longer range. The subject now I want to refer to relates to energy which, as everybody agrees is one of our major problems facing mankind and, in general, the future probably lies in renewable energies. And, it so happens, that renewable energies, renewable sources rather, are spread in a different way to the spread of users or the consumers and, also, they vary a lot from each other. Therefore, any research that is meant to sort a problem on the large scale or the global scale requires also the integration of all these forms and the cooperation of the various sources. And, personally, I think that the future of this depends on the degree to which we succeed in globalizing the problem and the international integration of it. I can write reams about it but seeing its effect is not sufficiently recognized, that it is not enough for a nation to work on its own little energy problem and to solve its own problem but, it has got to be done in such a way that it can be integrated with its neighbors and with the world as a whole. And, that is not for tomorrow, that is for the next few decades but I think that is where the future lies. We are very glad that we have some beginnings of companies in the U.S. but it is not enough.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Well, we listen carefully when you speak on the subject of energy, Professor. I know of your seminal work here. Years ago nuclear energy, now this solar project, and other projects so I am interested to hear of your views and, I believe there is some new integration in this region across the Sinai that will soon be completed. Is that correct?

PARTICIPANT: Small beginning.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Yes, a small beginning. There are some very long range ideas put forward years ago by Buckminster Fuller and others that may eventually come to pass in the next century.

PARTICIPANT: We are in contact with the Chinese people in California..

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: ..who are pursuing Fuller's idea, yeah.

PARTICIPANT: Haim, Professor Harari, mentioned that the Institute is trying to figure whether it is a basic science or technology institution and in educating the graduate students that we have here we are grappling with similar issues. And, grappling with one of them is relatively straightforward. We are able and we do offer our students in the basic sciences courses in biotechnology, chemical technology and computer-related technology and we even had Martin Gurstell give a series of lectures on business concepts for scientists teaching them through first year business school in two lectures, they know math (laughter). One difficult issue is how.....

HARARI: Excuse me, Martin Gurstell is the gentleman who together with me met you in Phoenix, Arizona, when

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Yes, oh yes, I remember..

HARARI: ..when you addressed the bi....

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: ...on the stage, yes, I remember.

HARARI: That's the man, thank you.

PARTICIPANT: So, that is sort of straightforward. The more difficult issue is how to educate with a firm grounding in the basic sciences but, with a view that is open to technology, towards the interdisciplinary skills that are necessary to do science today, and how do you educate the student with both the basic knowledge and with the openness is something that is much hard to balance. You don't want a student that knows a little bit of chemistry, a little physics, a little math, a little biology. You want somebody who has a firm grounding but yet is very, very open. And that part is something we are still grappling with educationally.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: It use to be, at the beginning of the scientific revolution, 350, 400 ago, that the leaders in science moved easily in and out of their fields and enriched other areas of human endeavor with ideas and metaphors and designs that originated in science but had applications in politics and culture and government and business. But, with the rapid accumulation of knowledge in the research enterprise, the tendency within science toward specialization seems to have interfered with that free flow of communication outside of science into other fields. And, even, has interfered with the flow of communication from one scientific discipline to the next. It is intriguing how many important discoveries in science seem to be made by specialists from some other field who have come to dabble in another area, unconsciously or consciously bringing with them the metaphors and models from what they've learned elsewhere and using them to uncover insights that were obscured to those who've spent a lifetime in a specialized area. So I wonder whether or not one of the answers to this problem you are trying deal with won't also involve improving the communication between scientists themselves across their own boundary lines.

PARTICIPANT: That's exactly usually the first barrier for people getting together, even if they have similar goals. The first barrier is communication and speaking the same language.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Well, I have seldom been so impressed by an institution like this one, and I'm very grateful for all of you joining to give such an illuminating overview of the many exciting inquiries that you have underway here, and I know that Minister Sharansky and Secretary Daley have many ambitious plans to further enrich the cooperative work between our two countries, and I myself am very optimistic about the long-range significance of this Next Generation Internet initiative and the possibility of Israeli institutions joining in the Internet II consortium. No better place to start that effort than here at the Weizmann Institute.

HARARI: Thank you very much Mr. Vice President.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Thank you.