[The significance of key technologies for the development of medicine]

The example of HIV infection and AIDS is used in order to demonstrate the influence of modern biotechnology as one of the main key technologies on the solution of this particular medical problem. AIDS has today the function of a model concerning the approach to a number of problems in medical research, particularly to infectious disease. New efficient vaccines are necessary as well as strategies for developing new antibiotics, antiparasitics and virostatics. The hugh progress achieved in this field in the last few years raises hopes that infectious diseases of man, animal and plant can be fought much more successfully by natural biological agents. The basic requirement to succeed there is, however, a well coordinated cooperation between modern high technologies in interdisciplinary work as a large-scale international cooperation.