The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the essential importance of biomanufacturing capabilities—extending to the geopolitical level—as well as the fragility of many supply chains and processes.
The U.S. government should create a Bio for America Program Office (BAPO) at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to house a suite of initiatives that would lead to the creation of more well-paying U.S.-based biomanufacturing jobs and more.
Streamlined funding of open and cross-disciplinary research, prize and challenge mechanisms, and market shaping through innovative procurement have all proven highly effective in the face of market failures and applied technology gaps like those seen in our bioindustry.
Our innovation ecosystem needs more transformative research and engagement enterprises (TREEs), especially for societal challenges that have not historically benefitted from solution-oriented research.
The U.S. government can accelerate the clean energy revolution by helping the geothermal industry scale technologies that can outcompete fossil fuels, and spurring cross-sector innovation.
Addressing health inequities and serving our nation’s diverse population requires an equally diverse biomedical workforce.
Like HIV/AIDS, acute childhood malnutrition is deadly but treatable with the right approach. A President’s Emergency Plan for Acute Childhood Malnutrition could catalyze the fight against malnutrition and direct resources to greater impact.
In our growing age of tech and social media, tech-ethics are increasingly relevant. A National Digital Ethics Framework can equip students to navigate a digitally transforming world responsibly and successfully.
Improving local food security is critical to ending poverty and eliminating hunger, and United States Government can be a global leader. From Jonathan Lehe, Nick Milne, and Gautam Bastian, a proposal for USAID, Feed the Future, and its partners to launch a Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge to improve crop yields worldwide.
Plants are key to enable a diversified and climate-resilient food system. Mary Fernandes proposes a Plant Genome Project (PGP), a robust Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a dataset of genetic information on plant species.
STEM subjects are powerful levers for change, but formal STEM-ed lacks opportunities to practice cultural competency. Anjika Pai and Sophia Swartz propose a task force committed to building values of inclusion and public service into the U.S. STEM workforce.
Getting ahead of the next pandemic is impossible without government financing.