From Drew Endy 2025 BIo AI testimony pp3 https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/Drew_Endy_Testimony.pdf
For President Xi Jinping, biotechnology is arriving on time and in ways that are directly
responsive to China’s highest-level needs and goals including:
(i) “complete domestic
circulation” of China’s economy,
(ii) “improve and stabilize” supply chains,
(iii) “improve the
mix of scientific and technological inputs and outputs,
” (iv) “ensure harmony between humans
and nature,” and
(v) “develop a bottom-up (public health) system that ensures early detection,
warning, and response so as to control diseases as they arise.”22
When Xi wrote during a
pandemic, “we need to attach greater importance to basic research in life sciences, including
genetics, genomics, virology, epidemiology, and immunology; accelerate R&D and innovations
in relevant medicines and vaccines; and put more emphasis on the use of IT and big data in these
fields,”22 he meant it. Behind Xi’s statement, “China must be basically self-sufficient in food
production and industrial development. We must never forget this,”22 is a primal driver; compared
to the United States, China must secure food for ~4-fold more people with ~25% less farmland.23
CHINA AND BIOTECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
There is ongoing debate whether China is already the world leader in biotechnology.24,25,26 From a
policy-maker perspective this debate risks missing the point. The progress of students, scientists,
engineers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and leaders in transforming China into a biotechnology
powerhouse over the past twenty years has been extraordinary.27
Through hard work, ambition,
and an all-of-nation effort, China is at-least matching the United States in key elements of
biotechnology’s “strategic stack” (education, research, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing), is
now better organized and supported by Beijing and beyond, and has tremendous momentum.
What do these accomplishments look and feel like from a competitive perspective?
Let’s start with education. In 2003 I helped launch what became the iGEM competition. Just 16
undergraduates with four instructors at MIT,28 modeled after Lynn Conway’s 1978 VLSI System
Design Course that helped launch a revolution in computer chip design.29 iGEM is now the
world-leading synthetic biology “olympics,” held in Paris each fall. Teams of students compete
to design, build, and test bioengineered systems for useful purposes that they define. Last year’s
champion from Germany sought to reprogram dandelions to produce carrot-shaped roots in
support of sustainable latex production.
Endy :recommmendsworldwide it will be impoertant to trtack peoples who pioneer biotech: Paying careful attention to the cultural context, support for, and engagement with
biotechnologies will matter most in the long run. Paying careful attention to how such opinions
are shaped and sculpted is important. If your nayion is a follower in biotech innovation- how do you map its positive emotional enerhgies?
ARE SHORT_TERM RULED PEOPLES (eg USA) DESTINED TO BE LAGGARDS IN BIOTECH
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Public funding for biotechnology research in the United States is grossly misallocated. We tend
to spend most public treasure on the immediate applications of biotechnology.
63 We fail to
sustain public investments in the foundational science and tool development needed to generate
an evergreen transformation in how we partner with biology to solve problems. The private
sector attempts to fill the gap (e.g., Codon, Gen9, Amyris, Zymergen, Gingko) but more often
than not fails to mature new tool platforms soon enough to realize commercial success.
Consider how much money the NIH spends, directly and indirectly, supporting researchers
building the DNA constructs they need to conduct NIH-sponsored research (over a billion dollars
per year). Now ask how much money the NIH spends getting better at building DNA (at most a
few percent of the cost to the taxpayer of building DNA). The situation is akin to if computer
scientists could only receive funding for working on mobile phone applications that help patients
in doctors’ offices tomorrow. Proposals to create new compilers, programming languages, and
operating systems – all seeking to make the process of solving problems with software, in
general, easier – would be rejected. What disease does “making it easier to cure diseases” cure?
To lead in biotechnology in perpetuity the United States needs to smartly spend only a few
billion dollars per year. But we must transpose how capital is allocated. Public capital must focus
on extraordinarily high leverage and risky foundational research. Private capital should support
entrepreneurs who can quickly and reliably translate scaled-solutions to market
ENDY suffests tese 2025 solutions if USA is to transform its valuation of biotech
(1) Resource NIST to create a Bio-Measurement Laboratory (BML). The NIST BML should
push the limits of measurement science in biology to establish and promulgate the
standards that accelerate scaling of the US bioeconomy and guarantee that as much of the
world as possible is operating on America’s biotechnology stack. Leading in
biometrology and standards setting will advantage all US activities globally, from
biotechnology regulation to biosafety and biosecurity policy and beyond.
(2) Re-task DARPA BTO and ARPA-H to focus on the foundational science and technology
opportunities and surprises that will fill in biology as a strategic domain (e.g., create and
secure a “bionet” unlocking distributed manufacturing resilience). Dramatically dial back
the focus on immediate utility to the warfighter and patient, respectively.
(3) Repurpose or increase DOE funding to launch and support one or more National
Biotechnology Accelerators whose primary mission is to relentlessly improve how
researchers practice biotechnology and its underlying workflows (i.e., measuring,
modeling, and making with biology). Public treasure gains the highest leverage when
taxpayer money supports developing the tools that entrepreneurs later build upon for
free.65 World-leading biotechnology tools are an absolute requirement if the United States
is to be the world leader in biotechnology.
(4) Repurpose or increase DOE funding to launch and support one or more Large Language
Laboratories (LLLs) whose mission is to guarantee that the United States has the world
leading foundation models in biology and biotechnology.
(5) Repurpose or increase DOD, DHS, HHS, and USDA funding to launch and sustain a
joint National BioDefense Institute (NBDI) that convenes and supports the nation’s best
scientists and engineers in leveraging emerging biotechnologies to secure biology. To the
greatest extent possible the NBDI should conduct its work in the open and in partnership
with industry and international partners.
(6) Akin to GEOINT, task and support the Intelligence Community, DOD, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), DHS, and the private sector in launching and
sustaining a BIOINT consortium whose mission is to see behind the “molecular curtain”
and help win a future free of biological catastrophe.66
(7) Increase support to the National Science Foundation for foundational science and
engineering research in biology and biotechnology ten-fold. Make sure the support is
used for foundational, blue-sky discovery and innovation. Adopt more effective models
for allocating research funds.67
(8) The relevant Senate and House committees overseeing science and technology should
make it obvious that America is “all in” on biotechnology by showcasing the nation’s
priorities, actions, successes, and opportunities via a central online resource, “bio.gov.”
This online resource must endure across administrations (e.g., where is ai.gov?).
In 1940 Marc Bloch wrote Strange Defeat. The choices we make, or fail to make over the next
few years, will determine the architecture of a global biotechnology system. One path leads to
multilateral flourishing within a human generation. Another leads to scarcity, stress, and worse.
67https://www.hypothesisfund.org/
66https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drew-endy-69ba17_winbywinning-biopartisanship-activity-7261753530116448256-qYzQ
~100,000 students have participated so far.31
31https://igem.org/
30https://2024.igem.wiki/marburg/
30 https://2024.igem.wiki/marburg/
29 https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MIT78.html
28 https://news.mit.edu/2003/blinkers-0226
27 https://itif.org/publications/2024/07/30/how-innovative-is-china-in-biotechnology/
26 https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/biotech-us-china-competition-drug-deals/737543/
25 https://cen.acs.org/business/economy/Chinese-biotech-attracting-global-attention/102/web/2024/12
24 https://www.labiotech.eu/in-depth/china-biotech-industry/
starting in 2012 China adopted and went all-in on a 20-year
roadmap for synthetic biology 1 2 that was developed in partnership with the UK and US.33
bloomberg jhu connection wolberger lab
Ever
since, students in China have benefited from all-of-government tailwinds. Last year ~50% of the
400-plus iGEM teams were China-based. Incredibly, some students in California found it easier
to participate in iGEM by traveling to China and joining a team there.34 China has also made
significant progress in scaling biotechnology and biomanufacturing education, more broadly.35
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congress hearing on who is winning
