This week BIO 2007, the world’s largest biotechnology conference, is happening at the new-ish Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, about 1/3 of a mile down the street from my office. For the 25,000 attendees, BIO 2007 means 5 days of non-stop learning, innovation, and networking; keynote addresses by Michael J. Fox, Queen Noor of Jordan, and industry kingpin James Greenwood; and plenty of after-hour schmoozing at hot-ticket events replete with biopharm executive delicacies like mushroom risotto and salmon.
For schmucks like me, BIO 2007 means not being able to cross the street for five minutes until the nice policeman stops the heavy flow of assorted livery and shuttle buses that are clogging Summer Street. It means 8 hours of particularly intense street noise: sirens, idling buses, honking horns, and the occasional heart-lurching brake screech followed by impassioned chiding. It means waiting in line in Dunkin Donuts behind a hodge-podge of lefty long-hairs and the riot police who itch to forcibly subdue them. And it means musing about the future impact of the conference, and whether something really great or really calamitous is brewing down the street. Yeah, it’s the 2004 Democratic Convention all over again.
