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Some of Boyer's colleagues carp that the Genentech connection has tainted his reputation as a "pure scientist." There has also been talk that it cost Boyer a Nobel Prize—one of the 1980 awards was shared by Stanford's Paul Berg for recombinant DNA research. But Boyer, whose only real ostentation is a new Porsche, has every reason to shrug off the criticism. After all, he argues, the full benefits of genetic engineering—say, the curing of diseases—can never come out of a university setting alone. "Business is more efficient," he says. "It will bring benefits to the public much faster."