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UK must turbocharge its innovation policy to harness engineering biology, say peers

14 January 2025

The Science and Technology Committee urges urgent policy actions across Government to maximise the contribution of engineering biology to the UK economy and public services.

Overview

Engineering biology is a fast-developing field of science with exciting potential applications across many sectors, from medicines and manufacturing to making new materials or more resilient crops.
The UK has identified this as a priority technology and there are many promising developments here, but our inquiry found that there is much more to be done.
Urgent action is needed or the UK is at risk once again of seeing the economic benefits of science and technology developed here but exploited overseas.

What is engineering biology?

  • Engineering biology involves designing and building new biological systems, molecules, or organisms.
  • It allows scientists to harness the power of nature to make new materials, or conduct existing processes in more efficient ways – for example, using bacteria to make synthetic alternatives to leather from coconut milk.
  • Recent technological developments, such as CRISPR gene-editing and AI, mean that we are potentially on the cusp of a new industrial revolution. Just as AI allows us to change the world’s “software”, engineering biology might allow us to change the “hardware”, moving atoms as well as digital bits.
  • Engineering biology offers opportunities to replace fossil fuels with more sustainable ways of making products. For example, genetically modified bacteria can be used to make dyes, or convert waste from industry into useful fuels. It can also enable us to improve on precision breeding, such as engineering crops that are resistant to a changing climate.
  • There are many start-up companies in the UK seeking to exploit this new technology, but researchers and companies alike need further support to maximise the potential of this technology in the UK.

Key recommendations

The Committee calls for action in seven key areas: strategy, skills, regulation, infrastructure, investment, adoption and governance. Amongst other key recommendations, it says the Government should:

  • offer incentives to firms to invest in innovative bio-tech companies and products;
  • ensure engineering biology is central to its Industrial Strategy;
  • recommit to its £2 billion funding target over 10 years for R&D and ensure stable funding for laboratories;
  • have effective policies in place to train and attract top talent, including from abroad;
  • develop more routes into engineering biology such as through apprenticeships.
  • appoint a national sector champion for engineering biology to coordinate the sector.

It stresses that public investment is needed “at speed” while private cash must also flow in “or we will continue to see an exodus of capital and companies to the US”. However, in common with many technology sectors, scale-up investment is hard to come by in the private or public sectors in the UK, and the report stresses the need for urgent reform to address this.

Chair’s quote

Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Lords Science and Technology Committee, said:

“Britain is a world-leader in scientific innovation, with a heritage that is the envy of the world. But all too frequently we are crashing into walls rather than smashing through ceilings. Pioneering companies urgently need to scale-up to become globally competitive - not get stuck in the investment ‘valley of death’. The Committee believes that without urgent action across the key areas set out in our report, the UK is at severe risk of losing the potential benefits of a world-leading engineering biology sector.

“All too often we hear that when companies reach a certain size, they move abroad for better investment and development prospects, taking most of the economic benefit with them. This failure to scale in the UK is a long-standing issue which requires an urgent, concerted, cross-government approach to fix.”

Further information

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