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Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 1978 Werner Arber was born in Gränichen, Switzerland, in 1929. He studied Natural Sciences at the Swiss Polytechnical School in Zurich, receiving his degree in 1953, and at the University of Geneva, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1958. After post-doctoral work at the University of Southern California and spending time at the laboratories of Joshua Lederberg at Stanford and Salvador Luria at MIT, both Nobel Laureates in Medicine, he returned to Geneva in 1960, where he became lecturer and then associate professor. He later spent a year as Miller Research Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He has been Professor of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Basel since 1971, and served as Rector from 1986 to 1988. He is Vice President of the Swiss Science Council, President of the International Council of Scientific Unions (since October 1996) and of the recently appointed International Scientific Advisory Board of Unesco. His research centres on microbial evolution, with special attention to the molecular mechanisms by which bacterial viruses transfer genes to other bacteria. He also explored host defences against such transfer and identified "restriction" sites where the viral DNA is attacked. The discovery that this process is controlled by a class of enzymes, each of which cuts the DNA at the same point every time, is at the basis of recombinant DNA techniques and opened new paths to genetic engineering. For this work, Arber received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1978 (with Daniel Adams and Hamilton Smith). He also explored natural mechanisms of DNA rearrangements in bacteria - in particular transposition of mobile genetic elements and site-specific recombination processes - postulating the presence in bacteria of specific genes, the products of which act as generators of genetic variation and thus carry out evolutionary functions. "Knowledge on molecular mechanisms of biological evolution is essential for the evaluation of potential risks of genetic engineering and it has its deep relevance for our world-view", says Arber, who is well known for his personal involvement in the debate on the problems posed by genetic manipulation. At the same time, he addresses the political issue of stimulating continued awareness among scientists of the importance of working with maximum care in all research, which should, however, be granted the greatest possible freedom of action.

1994 Scientific advance calls for both disciplinary competence and interdisciplinary approaches 1997 Transdisciplinary and transnational academic education and its impact