From Drew Endy 2025 BIo AI testimony pp3
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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comngress hesarin on who is winning
