Science is an intregal part of culture, which moves in the medium of symbols and interpretations. In its epistemic form science also consists of symbolic constructions and interpretations. These make neither themselves nor the world that they describe definite. The driving force behind science and behind scientific culture (which in a deeper understanding are only one) is a research imperative whose efficiency results in the formation of a Leonardo-World, i.e. the modern world as the work of homo faber.

Due to a false feeling of superiority, Europe has gravely underestimated and not developed sustainable relations with the new world power that has emerged in Pacific Asia. A first step to change the situation was taken at the Asia-Europe Summit in Bangkok in March 1996. But much remains to be done to avoid future confrontations. Overseas education is one field that has hitherto been neglected in Europe. To pave the way for a better dialogue and partnership, the academic field should be utilised on a long-term basis to improve the social, cultural and intellectual framework for enhanced political and economic interaction between Asia and Europe.

Research on stress and gender carried out in the author's laboratory over two decades is reviewed. Problems related to stress in women's and men's everyday life have been approached by combining concepts and methods from the behavioural, social and biomedical sciences, using neuroendocrine and cardiovascular measurements as indices of the pressures to which women and men are exposed. Special attention has been given to men and women in leadership roles. Results are reported from studies concerned with balancing demands from work and family, the dilemma of the dual-career couple, and women managers' difficulty unwinding after work. On the basis of the results it is suggested that while women in high-grade positions have higher stress levels than their male counterparts, they have a wider repertoire of stress-management strategies and, hence, cope more effectively.

Systems studied by science are generally characterized by a hierarchy of levels with different dimensions. Continuous moving up and down these scalar levels is needed for understanding. In biology, the science of the very complex, application of simple general rules is rarely—if ever—sufficient. Thus, conceptual reductionism is not possible As in fractals, where scaling does not affect the structures emerging, similar extraordinary complexity appears on each scalar level. Thus, scaling down is not reductionism. The need for continuous scaling up and scaling down not only requires integration of specialists but also reincarnation of generalists.

During the last 40 years or so there has been an exponential growth in our knowledge of biology and medicine and, within this period, several discoveries stick out as particularly important. The opening salvo for all later revolutionary developments was the clarification of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in the early 1950s. Another milestone was the breaking of the genetic code by Holley, Khorana and Nierenberg in the 1960s. Nowadays, most people know that DNA is made up from a double helix of deoxyribonucleic acid, where the genetic information is laid down in the sequence of the DNA building blocks, the nucleotides. Genes, as we now know, are in principle nothing other than sections of the chromosomal DNA harbouring, in the sequence of contiguous nucleotide triplets, the genetic information for the synthesis of proteins, as a rule one protein per gene.

Gene therapy makes use of cloned DNA molecules as pharmaceutical agents aimed at the treatment of both inherited genetic disease as well as acquired disorders such as cancer and viral infections. A major hurdle to be overcome in this approach is the introduction of genes into cells. Both viral and non-viral vectors have been used as ‘gene ferries’ and the design of vectors with desired specificities is under way. Today, the field has reached a stage where one can safely say that the principle of gene therapy has been proven and has been shown to represent a realistic therapy for patients, but much development is still required, especially in the area in in vivo gene transfer.

The experimental observations and techniques upon which the ‘Recombinant DNA’ revolution was founded are introduced; these often came from esoteric research, but nevertheless have promoted a dramatic change in both biotechnology and our molecular understanding of eukaryotic organisms. The basic approaches to the cloning and analysis of foreign genes in E. coli are described, followed by some indication of how the technologies continue to evolve, thereby enabling the current attack on major problems in agriculture and medicine.

Transgenic animals are organisms in which permanent gene modifications have been experimentally introduced into their germline. Most knowledge of modern biology relating to the tissue-specific regulation of genes and their function in development and diseases stems from studies using transgenic mice. Transgenic technology also offers the unique opportunity for generating animal models for human diseases and for producing large quantities of biomedically important proteins in farm animals. Furthermore, the recent development of ‘gene switches’ regulating gene expression in a temporal and/or tissue-specific manner opens up new possibilities for the study of gene function in the context of the whole animal.

We can now genetically engineer many of the world's major crop plants. Generally, transformation strategies based on the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens are used to generate transgenics, although success in cereal and legume transformation has been achieved by the introduction of DNA by particle bombardment. Plants have now been engineered to be tolerant of herbicides, produce fruit storable for prolonged periods, be resistant to insect predation and fungal pathogens, as well as have changed biochemical characteristics. Plant transformation can itself be used as a means of isolating genes from plants by gene tagging and this may provide a means of isolating plant genes of agronomic value. These advances, coupled with the recent demonstration of the ability of plants to produce novel pharmaceuticals and biodegradable plastics, have the potential to revolutionize agricultural practice, as well as to increase our knowledge of plant growth and development.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international project to map, clone and determine the nucleotide sequence of the entire human genome. The estimated length of our genome is 3 × 109 nucleotide pairs and contains approximately 70000 to 100000 genes and a large amount of extragenic DNA. A dense linkage map produced with highly polymorphic markers has already been constructed and a physical map of overlapping cloned DNA fragments has been achieved for nearly 90% of the human genome. A partial nucleotide sequence for about half the human genes is in public databases (with full-length sequences for over 4200 genes) but only approximately 0.4% of the entire human genome has been sequenced. It is the goal of the HGP to determine the full human nucleotide sequence by the year 2005. The HGP has already made, and will continue to make, important contributions to medicine in the understanding of the pathogenesis of disorders, accurate diagnosis and realization of effective, logical treatment. The ethical, legal and social aspects of the HGP are numerous and complex; funding for the consideration, debate and resolution, and thus the ability to use the information from the HGP for the benefit of medicine and all society is included in the HGP.