 Establishment of the BII coincided with a convergence of a critical mass of young and energetic scientists from around the world in Basel to staff three startup research ventures to exploit the newly breaking technologies related to molecular biology, gene cloning and development of mouse models.In addition to BII, these were the Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) sponsored by Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) and the Biozentrum  sponsored by the University of Basel.In the 1970s it was estimated that 17 different languages were spoken at the institute united by English, the common language of science.