A brief overview of the evolution and main features of the biotechnology industry

This paper offers an overview of the origin, evolution and main features of the biotechnology industry, putting particular emphasis on the behaviour of one key actor – the dedicated biotechnology firm. It starts with a brief historical background detailing the origin and dynamics of the industry, which is followed by a more detailed examination of the firms’ strategies, business models and networking behaviour. It concludes with a discussion on the constraints and opportunities faced by firms operating outside the main centres of knowledge production and business in biotechnology, as is the case of dedicated biotechnology firms located in Portugal.FC

A decision support system for planning promotion time slots

We report on the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) to plan the best assignment for the weekly promotion space of a TV station. Each product to promote has a given target audience that is best reached at specific time periods during the week. The DSS aims to maximize the total viewing for each product within its target audience while fulfilling a set of constraints defined by the user. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and successful implementation of a heuristic-based scheduling software system that has been developed for a major Portuguese TV station.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)- FCT/POCI 2010/FEDER, Projecto POCTI/MAT/61842/2004Estação de Televisão SI

Knowledge access and location decisions in biotechnology: the spatial dimension of social networks

DINÂMIA'CET, Dezembro de 2009.This paper addresses the spatial dimension of knowledge sourcing strategies, investigating the role played by social networks on the access to scientific and technological knowledge by new biotechnology firms. Our approach takes into consideration the impact of various forms of proximity - geographical, social, cognitive and organisational - on the development of key relationships, as well as on their use for knowledge acquisition. It enables us to assess the relative importance of local and distant knowledge sources and to explain the entrepreneurs’ decisions in terms of network mobilisation.FC

Salmonella sp. in edible offal (liver and tongue) from pigs slaughtered for consumption

During this study, 120 samples from slaughtered pigs (tongue swabs, n=40; liver swabs, n=40; liver parenchyma, n=40) were collected in a slaughterhouse. Salmonella sp. was isolated using conventional microbiological methods and strains were analyzed using serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and macrorestriction profiling (MRP) by Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE), to identify clonal relationships and potential contamination sources

Evidence for engraftment of human bone marrow cells in non-lethally irradiated baboons

Background. Prior to organ harvesting, an attempt was made to modulate the donor's immune responses against prospective xenogeneic recipients by infusion of 'recipient-type' bone marrow. Methods. For this purpose, baboons conditioned with total lymphoid irradiation were given 6x108 unmodified human bone marrow cells/kg body weight with no subsequent treatment. Results. Animals survived until they were euthanized at 18 months. Using primers specific for human chorionic gonadotrophin gene, the presence of human DNA was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction in the blood of one animal for up to 18 months after cell transplantation; in the other animal, xenogeneic chimerism became undetectable in the blood at 6 months after bone marrow infusion. However, tissue samples obtained from both animals at the time they were euthanized bad evidence of donor (human) DNA. Additionally, the presence of donor DNA in individually harvested colonies of erythroid and myeloid lineages suggested that infused human bone marrow cells had engrafted across the xenogeneic barrier in both baboons. Conclusions. Bone marrow transplantation from human to baboon leads to establishment of chimerism and modulation of donor-specific immune reactivity, which suggests that this strategy could be reproducibly employed to crease 'surrogate' tolerogenesis in prospective donors for subsequent organ transplantation across xenogeneic barriers

Building a bridge: social networks and technological regimes in biotechnology and software

The paper investigates the influence of technological regimes on the composition and structure of firms’ knowledge networks. We combine insights from two hitherto unconnected bodies of research: one relating technological regimes with the nature of knowledge; and the other relating knowledge and types of innovation with network configuration. Drawing on this framework, we build a number of propositions on the relationship between firms’ networking behaviour and the regime under which they operate, operationalized at both sector and firm-level. These propositions are explored through empirical research comparing firms operating in two distinct knowledge-intensive sectors, namely biotechnology, which is commonly considered more science-based, and software, thought of as mostly technology-based. As expected, we found that distinct technological regimes affect the knowledge search/exchange process, and thus have an impact upon the network building strategies of the firms. The results also reveal that sector-based technological regimes have a greater explanatory capacity than firm-based regimes that cross sectoral boundaries. The use of different approaches and techniques, together with the combination of sector and firm level analyses, provided a tool that enabled a deeper understanding of the variety of networking behaviours among knowledge-intensive firms.POCI/ESC/60500/2004 e PPCDT/ESC/60500/2004 FC

Challenges and opportunities of decarbonization for the economic recovery post-pandemic: The question of directionality in innovation policies

Countries face a double challenge of unprecedented scale consisting in drastically reducing carbon emissions in the time of a generation, while recovering the economy from the worst pandemic crisis in a century. Innovation is key in the response to this double challenge. Innovation policies are increasingly directed at achieving both goals, as governments seek opportunities for transforming the economic structure along with decarbonization. We raise the question of the effect of the direction in the success of the policies for the sustainability transition to achieve the economic transformation. We start by analyzing the processes of change in the economic structure. We identify three possible strategies of transformation: decarbonization, dematerialization and digitalization. Then we compare the evolution of the economic complexity of Portugal, which aspires to transform its economy, with that of three countries that are respectively reference in each one of the three strategies: Denmark, The Netherlands, and Ireland. Successful strategies evidence specialization in products that involve extensive and sophisticated knowledge, produced with high connectivity to other activities and with low carbon footprint. Based on these results and informed by the theory, we propose a set of conditions—related to the promotion of connectivity to growing sectors, high social return technologies and variety— that need to be aligned in the direction of the policies in order to increase their potential for transformative change.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio