Written Evidence Submitted by the Biochemical Society

(C190088)

Background: The Biochemical Society

About the Biochemical Society:  

The Biochemical Society promotes the future of molecular biosciences; facilitating the sharing of expertise, supporting the advancement of biochemistry and molecular biology, and raising awareness of their importance in addressing societal grand challenges.  

We achieve our mission by:  

• Supporting the next generation of biochemists; promoting the opportunities offered by biochemistry and molecular biology through education and training from age 15 upwards. 
• Bringing together molecular bioscientists; fostering connections and providing a platform for collaboration and networking across our membership and the wider community to ensure a strong future for molecular biosciences in both academia and industry.
• Promoting and sharing knowledge; enabling the circulation of scientific information through meetings, publications and public engagement to support innovation, inform decision-making and advance biochemistry and molecular biology. 
• Promoting the importance of our discipline; highlighting the role of molecular biosciences in interdisciplinary and translational research, while supporting the fundamental research that underpins applied studies.  

The Response: areas of interest

1. The contribution of research and development in understanding, modelling and predicting the nature and spread of the virus; 

Work in the molecular biosciences is vital to understand SARS-CoV-2. This includes understanding the basic molecular structure of the virus which leads to functional analysis. Further, next generation sequencing is giving information about the molecular evolution of new variants of the virus and enables the tracking of their spread. The UK sequencing effort has made a major contribution to this work on a global level. A survey of the molecular bioscience community conducted by the Biochemical Society suggested that 4 % of researchers have changed the focus of their work towards COVID-19[1]. 

2. The capacity and capability of the UK research base in providing a response to the outbreak, in terms of: 

• advice to government, public bodies and others on managing the outbreak; 

The UK scientific community has a significant capacity to provide direct advice to HMG and public bodies. However, at times opportunities to input advice into Government and public health bodies were unclear. In particular, communication from Public Health England and Public Health Wales was lacking. Whilst there were eventually calls for reagents and equipment, there were limited calls for expertise or input into strategic routes.

Nimble communication with the national science-base is key for mobilization. It is felt that this could be improved in the UK, with a good example set by the German government in communicating with its own scientific community.

• the development of testing, diagnostic methods and technologies; 

Although the UK has played a significant role in the development of testing and diagnostic methods and technology, it had a lower capacity in its biotechnology and diagnostic industries than some similar economies. The UK lagged behind a number of European countries, such as Germany whose government links with industry allowed a rapid increase in ramping up of testing capacity once diagnostic tests had been developed.

There is significant opportunity to build on the knowledge, skills and existing capacity within UK bioscience sector as part of the economic recovery following the pandemic. Growing the SME Biotechnology base in the UK would allow the UK to react more quickly to develop its testing capacity in future.  Many bioscience graduates from Higher and Further Education currently do not enter the industry following their training. Increasing investment in Biotechnology start-ups and transitioning SMEs into larger employers, would provide jobs within the Biotechnology industry for these graduates and increase the UKs ability to build its capacity for testing and diagnostic development.

• the development and testing of vaccines; and the development and testing of therapeutics; 

The above areas should be an international endeavor with nationally-coordinated projects feeding in to the global effort. The UK is well-placed to perform this as has been demonstrated in developing and testing potential vaccines. In addition, the UK has shown flexibility to run clinical trials to test potential therapeutics. The community has also repurposed existing molecules or drugs for applications in COVID-19.

3. The flexibility and agility of institutions, Government departments and public bodies, and processes to respond appropriately during the crisis including:

• the availability and responsiveness of funding; and 

Much of the initial response to the pandemic used existing funds and repurposed them for immediate use. However, there needs to be transparency in project prioritization by funding bodies which has been lacking. In addition, following initial quick funding calls in the Spring, it has been difficult to see where these have since been awarded. While flexible funding can be, and has been, helpful, this process could benefit from increased coordination, oversight across the UK and transparency.

The Biochemical Society community survey also revealed concerns of the molecular bioscience research community around the future funding landscape[2]. Responses indicated a wide range of approaches from funders to individual grants. Some funders offered either costed or no-cost extensions to existing grants or PhD studentships, whilst others have not clarified a position at the time of the survey. Clarity and consistency in messaging around the handling of funding applications would help create some certainty for UK researchers. It is anticipated that the impact of the pandemic will most keenly fall on researchers at the beginning of their career. This was echoed by findings from community surveys conducted by the British Neuroscience Association[3]. As the future of the UK science base, support and certainty for early career scientists would be beneficial in maintaining capacity for future outbreaks[4].

• the optimal functioning of regulatory and ethical processes; 

Excellent

• the availability and influence of scientific advice in all Government departments and public bodies—including by departmental Chief Scientific Advisers; and

Learned Society memberships are a huge potential resource of scientific knowledge and opinion. SAGE and its subcommittees represent only a small proportion of scientific knowledge within the UK science-base. Clearer mechanisms of communication between Government departments and Learned Societies could enable the leveraging of this resource and broad expertise.

4. The capacity to manufacture and distribute testing, diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines: 

• both standing capacity and capacity able to be mobilised; 

Whilst the UK does not currently have a large diagnostics industry, academia and industry both used their resources to support the scale-up of testing capacity.  The community supported this effort through donations of equipment and reagents where possible. The Biochemical Society feels that the capacity within academia was underutilised and could have better helped support the rapid increase in testing capacity by utilising the knowledge and expertise within the UK science base in addition to equipment and consumables and clearer co-ordination across regions and nations.

5. The mechanisms for communication of scientific evidence internationally, within national governments and with the public: 

• including the handling of conflicting scientific opinions; and 

The scientific community has made significant efforts to communicate key information through the traditional channels. This begins with the publishing and review of research by journals. The rapid dissemination of scientific results in a fast-evolving situation has been aided by publishers in the biosciences (including Portland Press) suspending pay-walls to access research either on COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 related papers[5] or across entire portfolios[6]. This has been an additional support for the research community.

The distillation of findings by senior scientists in the advising national governments makes sense. Internationally recognized bodies such as WHO or CDC are in a position to arbitrate on conflicting opinions having been in receipt of nationally-acquired information.

The use of archives such as bioRxiv to publish pre-prints of relevant articles has additionally aided the fast dissemination of research amongst the scientific community. However, it is crucial that non-experts including policy-makers and members of the public have sufficient guidance around peer review process in comparison with uploaded pre-prints which have not necessarily been through peer review. This is especially important with the increasing use of social media to disseminate scientific findings either by scientists directly or subsequently by members of the public. Without filters and fact-checking, incorrect information can be shared rapidly. 

Clear and effective communication with the public is absolutely key to achieve good public understanding of the science and the associated public health measures. Increased clarity and timeliness of evidence used by Government advisory groups such as SAGE would be helpful as it reinforces trust and provides the scientific community with a picture of what information is reaching these groups. It was disappointing to see the daily briefings end in England before other nations (Wales and Scotland) as they provided the public with information on the evidence underlying policy actions.

6. The UK’s readiness for future outbreaks: 

Readiness for future outbreaks needs to be common place and must include consideration of entire supply chains, including packaging and reagents in addition to equipment and expertise. 

The example of the Francis Crick Institute in converting its laboratories to enable the performance of testing demonstrates the potential for small, agile institutes to contribute to efforts to quickly scale-up testing capacity. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic could form the basis of formalising mobilisation plans amongst institutions with existing GMP facilities. Concurrently, an audit of capacity contained across the whole UK bioscience base including industry, academia and Public Health England/ Public Health Wales would be useful to aid mobilisation in future. A mechanism for collecting this information on capacity quickly would be advisable to allow optimum operation in a future outbreak.

There are substantial opportunities for the UK science-base to play a part in both the economic recovery following the current pandemic and the Government’s “levelling-up” agenda, as has been described by the Campaign for Science and Engineering in their report “The Power of Place”[7]. This includes opportunities for development of the UK biotechnology and the diagnostics sector while simultaneously providing jobs and economic stimulation while increasing capacity within the UK which could support the UK response to a future outbreak.

(July 2020)