Still, there are times when biotech companiesand professors at the College share the sameinterests, Gilbert says.

"Every once in a while you go through a periodwhen those two interests [of academia and ofindustry] overlap, and that's generally when wehave new companies develop," he says.

It was under such circumstances that Gilbertentered the biotech industry.

"There was a period in which the research I wasdoing in the late seventies was a hot researchtopic. It developed into [commercial]biotechnology," Gilbert says. "But the research Ido now, molecular evolution, that's not connectedwith [biotech] companies."

Restrictions on Faculty Involvement

Even those professors whose interests coincidewith those of private companies are restrained bythe Faculty and by HMS regulations governingfaculty interactions with industry.

Professors serving on advisory boards andboards of directors are prevented by theUniversity from spending more than 20 percent oftheir time on these outside interests, Gilbertsays.

The Faculty of Medicine, in its Policies onIntegrity in Science, advises professors "to avoidarrangements that might compromise [the Faculty's]intellectual principles."

In addition, professors are prevented fromdoing classified or proprietary research forcompanies because all research done at Harvardmust be publishable, according to MallinckrodtProfessor of Chemistry George M. Whitesides.

"Any research done at Harvard belongs toHarvard, in an intellectual property sense, sothere is a real effort to keep the research incompanies separate from the research in theuniversity labs," he says.

While research partnerships raise issues ofintegrity, professors and biotech companies agreethat consulting relationships are mutuallybeneficial.

Professors may gain access to research fundingand to patented technologies held only by thefirms.

"Being on [scientific advisory boards] givesus, in the University, a sense for the problems inmedicine and a sense for what the issues are inmoving science from discovery into products thatare used in treating disease," Whitesides says.

Gilbert says about one quarter of hispost-doctoral students typically accept jobs inindustrial firms, and contact with industry canthus be good for his students.

A relationship with professors at theUniversity also "gives the company access to abroader range of research than the company couldobtain itself," Maniatis says.