title: A blessing in disguise: international standards for the biotechnology industry.
abstract: Regardless of the industry, standards are ubiquitous in our everyday lives and essential to the interconnection of people, businesses, and countries. Standardization seeks to consensually establish the best technical application forany given process in order to ensure consistent quality, minimization of risks,and interoperability. As a life scientist, I was surprised to see my natural reservation towards draconic documentation change. Life science standards aref undamentally important for the smooth transaction of data and repetition of experiments, and may help small and medium enterprises gain the international attention they deserve and require, in order to get their innovations noticed.
authors.affiliation: Department ENA, DIN-German Institute for Standardization, Berlin, Germany. Joachim.Lonien@din.de
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lonien
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D005062:European Union; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D038622:Internationality; D010330:Patents as Topic; D012449:Safety; D014481:United States