Science is the art of answering new questions, but more and more often is facing problems which are the product of its own success. First among these is the problem posed by the relationship between scientific research and economic growth, generated by the changing equilibrium among the developed countries and the growing gap between the North and South of the planet, by a new conception of health and the quality of life and by the questions that technological progress poses for the future of human race and the environment. Scientific progress has always deeply modified social organisation and individual liife style and attitude, often indipendently from a public awareness of these transformations. Today, the relationship between science and economics is stronger than ever, and the pace of discoveries and their application is more and more rapid. Communicating to the public the potential and the limits of research is therefore indispensable to create a good relationship between science and society, between decision-makers and the citizen. Ten Nobel Laureates are invited to turn their attention to the major issues that have emerged from the redefinition of our conceptions of humanity, nature and society in the wake of scientific progress. Their lectures are divided into five sessions.

Therapeutics: Progress and Pitfalls Wednesday 8 December 1993 Scientists are far from being a homogeneous group. We usually divide our scientists into academics and industrial types. We make the distinction between Research and Development as though the distinction was useful and then we immediately blur that distinction by putting them together in R and D departments. Compared to Research, Development involves different kinds of people from whom we have different expectations. But the difference is now waning: industrial researchers with more money available are being encouraged to become more analytical and more academic in their research. Role reversal is afoot in science today and role reversal is usually dangerous. Applied scientists are now playing academic tunes. Look at medicine, an applied science if ever there was one. Look at its obsession with molecularity. But when we get down to the molecules of life, to our components, we have left life behind and the the mysteries of health and disease deepen. Molecular biology has greatly enriched our analytical capabilities but control through comprehension lies elsewhere. The current linear metaphor, that pathology results from defects in one or more of the gene-to-gene product pathways, leads to the thinking that the disturbance can be corrected by single point, genetic or molecular, interventions. However if the processes have sufficient complexity, single point attack may be either disappointing. The future of drug research will be limited by the present relation between our scientific concepts and our models of diseases. Similar problems will impede our understanding, detection and avoidance of drug toxicity. In vitro toxicology is predicated on linear, homeostatic concepts in which state-determined feedback loops exert control. In this view nothing is lost in taking pieces, organs, tissues or cells out of the loop. However, there are alternative views of physiological organisation. According to the homeodynamic view every level in a natural system is constrained by the next level above and the next level below; it is in the middle of a sandwich with every level equally sovereign with respect to the global stability of the organism. I dare say ideas such as these will be needed some day to explain drug toxicity in all its wonders and to avoid as far as possible that some aspects of drug toxicity may only be manifested when given to sick people. The resulting essay has been translated into Italian and published in the book Scienza, economia, etica per il prossimo secolo. Dieci Nobel per il futuro. (Marsilio, Venezia 1994).