UK must capitalise on bio-tech boom
Interview with
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer has declared artificial intelligence to be the "defining opportunity" of modern times in a bid to put technology at the centre of economic growth. But this comes as the UK’s House of Lords is urging decision-makers and big business to take bold steps to boost the country’s bio-tech sector; otherwise, they say, we risk being trapped in a “doom loop” where foreign competitors exploit British breakthroughs and leapfrog us economically. I’ve been speaking with Julia King, otherwise known as Baroness Brown of Cambridge; she chairs the Lords Science and Technology Committee…
Julia - The title of this report is Don't Fail to Scale: Seizing the Opportunity of Engineering Biology. Engineering biology is using organisms such as bacteria to replace industrial processes, particularly industrial chemistry. It relies on the fact that we can now read DNA and actually, if you like, write DNA, create DNA sequences. So it uses things like gene editing but also, very importantly, AI, because that gives us the ability to find, select, and indeed tailor biological organisms that can do particular jobs. Some of those jobs can be really important—for example, bacteria that can break down fatbergs and turn them into ingredients for perfume. Something terrible from the drains turning into something we can make perfume out of.
Chris - I don’t know, some people have given me some fairly questionable aftershaves in the past, Julia, for Christmas. It probably smells like it comes from that origin. But we've been doing this kind of thing—synthetic biology and so on—for many years. So why is this report coming out now, and what's new?
Julia - The UK, as you say, has been really brilliant at the science of synthetic biology. Over the last 20 years, we've been developing that science base, but now it's really starting to take off and become industrial processes—industrial processes that could be much lower energy, much more sustainable, less environmentally damaging, and could help us to solve some of the world's big problems.
It's really taking off rapidly in other countries, so if we're going to benefit from the great science we've done in the UK, we need to help UK companies—particularly small UK companies—that are starting to use this. We need to help them scale.
Chris - This is the classic UK problem though, isn't it? We're really good at grassroots innovation and getting things off the ground, but we're not good at scaling them. As you say, that has been a perennial problem, and many, many politicians and policymakers over the years have talked about it, but we never seem to solve it.
Julia - You're absolutely right, and this just seems to be such an exciting area where, if we can solve it, we can really make a difference. This is what a lot of our industries of the future will be based on. So, if we want to stimulate industry and economic growth in the UK, this is a chance we've absolutely got to grab.
As our science minister, Lord Patrick Vallance, said, we've got a small but closing window in the UK to do this. That’s why we’re publishing this report and why we conducted this inquiry now. We want to say to the government, "Come on, we've got to grab this window."
Chris - You spoke to many scientists, industrialists, and so on in compiling this report. What did they tell you they need? In other words, what recommendations are you putting in the report to say to policymakers, "This is the pain these people are suffering from, and this is the panacea they need"?
Julia - They need skills. We could do with more funding to train more people in this area. But also, of course, we need to stop losing people to places like the US and Singapore, which are moving forward rapidly. We need to be able to attract people here. That means more support for visas for scientists.
We need the right regulatory environment. At the moment, the regulatory system for this is very complicated. The government has established the Regulatory Innovation Office, but that needs to move quickly to simplify things. Small companies working in this area need a single point of contact for regulation rather than having to deal with multiple regulators, as they do now.
We also need investment. For example, the National Wealth Fund should act as a first investor, taking risks to crowd in other investors.
And we need market pull to attract those investors—not just the government showing it’s prepared to invest, but also using public procurement to create demand. For instance, the US has a
Biopreferred Program. We could have similar policies here, like requiring a certain percentage of biofuels or sustainable aviation fuels in the aviation industry, which is already set to increase gradually year by year.
If we could make that requirement more specific to engineering biology-derived fuels, or find other ways to use policy to pull through and create markets for these new processes, it would really help attract investors.
Chris - Do you think the government will go for it?
Julia - I hope so. I mean, we've been really pleased with the impact our report has had. We’re, of course, now waiting for a government response. We have Lord Vallance as our science minister and Dame Angela McLean as the government’s chief scientist, so we already have some strong voices in government.
The government is also in the process of producing an industrial strategy, so we hope we’re highlighting this very exciting opportunity at the right time. The UK has the strengths, and we need to act on them now.
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