Summary
Engineering biology is a fast-developing field of science with exciting potential applications across many sectors. These range from medicine and manufacturing to materials and food, and from growing more resilient crops to cleaning up waste in the environment. Biotechnologies could allow us to replace fossil fuels as the basic feedstock for much of industrial production—this would be a significant step towards achieving net zero and a sustainable economy.
Engineering biology involves the design and construction of new or modified organisms or molecules, based on those we find in nature. Recent technological developments, such as gene editing, as well as data analysis through machine learning, allow us to harness and even enhance biological processes. Developments in AI increasingly enable us to rewrite the “software” of our world. However, essential products often require “hardware”, too—new ways to shape the world around us. Engineering biology has the potential to provide this, moving atoms as well as bits. As the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, told us, its beneficial uses “are not science fiction”—they are here now.
The UK was a world-leader in engineering biology, following far-sighted investments over a decade ago. However, the UK’s position at the forefront of this field has slipped as other countries invest more and adopt more strategic, holistic policies. The UK continues to have long-standing strengths in the life sciences, a significant academic base, and a growing start-up scene. The previous Government identified engineering biology as a critical technology. It launched the National Vision for Engineering Biology, for which the current Government has expressed support. But unless we act quickly, the UK is at a severe risk, once again, of seeing the economic and industrial benefits of science and technology developed here exploited overseas.
The UK still has a strong research base. However, this cannot be taken for granted. It needs consistent funding, skilled researchers and technical experts trained here or attracted to the UK, and well-funded research infrastructure to stay at the cutting edge. Each of these areas require coordinated government action to secure the future of engineering biology R&D in the UK.
For engineering biology to contribute to UK sustainability and economic growth requires, above all, that companies can scale up beyond the start-up and spin-out phase and become globally competitive. 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. Our inquiry found that engineering biology was often an illustrative case study of wider issues across the UK economy. This failure to scale in the UK is a long-standing issue across many sectors of technology which requires an urgent, concerted, cross-government approach to fix.
Like many other technologies such as AI, engineering biology also has the potential to be misused by hostile actors. It can raise biosecurity risks which the Government must carefully manage through informed regulation.
For the public to make informed choices about this technology and its development, active public engagement is required. The technology must be understood, and public concerns addressed to avoid a possible repeat of past experiences with GMOs.
There are several policy areas the UK must get right to support a flourishing sector. Our inquiry highlights seven key areas: strategy, skills, regulation, infrastructure, investment, adoption and governance:
- Strategy: The Government needs a plan for engineering biology as part of its Industrial Strategy. It should, as a minimum, recommit to the previous Government’s £2 billion funding target over ten years to maintain the UK’s R&D sector. The plan will require concrete outcomes and targets, regular progress updates against these metrics, and coordinated work across Government. It should identify how novel cross-sectoral technologies like engineering biology can be supported to deliver the wider goals of the industrial strategy such as sustainability and economic growth. It must consider factors such as the availability of feedstocks and where the UK can be a leading player, in the context of global markets and supply chains.
- Skills: The UK needs an expanded training offer and more effective visa policies to attract top talent from abroad. UKRI should fund more doctoral training programmes for engineering biology, incorporating a year in industry, including start-ups and spinouts, and there is a gap for Masters’ level graduate conversion courses. Skills England should work with industry to expand routes into engineering biology, with a focus on apprenticeships and training for technical roles. High upfront visa costs and limited selection criteria limit the Global Talent visa, which should be expanded in scientific and technical areas.
- Regulation: The UK needs a swift and clear regulatory landscape to help drive responsible innovation. At present it is too difficult for companies to understand which regulators will oversee them and what the route to market is in this cross-disciplinary sector. The creation of the Regulatory Innovation Office is a good step. It is vital that regulators operate at the leading edge of the technology, sufficiently resourced, and independent. They should have experts from a wide range of disciplines and industries on hand, to clarify the landscape and ensure that any risks are identified and managed. Standards are important for any industry to grow, and are particularly lacking in engineering biology: the UK can use its research expertise to play a leading role in setting these internationally.
- Infrastructure: Infrastructure is key at various stages of development, from early-stage research infrastructure which allows companies to acquire the data needed for patents, to scale-up infrastructure to demonstrate that a new process can work on an industrial scale. The UK has some useful infrastructure, especially at the early stages, but its use is limited by lack of awareness, and prohibitive access costs. A map of available research infrastructure and funding support for researchers and businesses to use it is needed. Core, stable funding for laboratories would prevent them from charging high prices for access or relying on inconsistent grant funding. A flexible policy for scale-up infrastructure is required to respond to a rapidly developing sector and provide support to build facilities when the need is identified.
- Investment: Both public and private investment are needed. The UK’s public investment offer suffers from a pipeline problem—Innovate UK and research councils can provide early-stage funding, but it is unclear where to go for scale-up funding. Initiatives like the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank may help address this, but their roles need clarity, their mandates need to be expanded. They need to be able to move at speed and take risks, necessitating teams of specialist investors for large-scale technological investments. In the private sector, there is a significant lack of scale-up funding coupled with a long-term decline in the UK’s capital markets, preventing the growth of companies. Widespread and significant financial reforms, including those announced in the Chancellor’s 2024 Mansion House speech, which aim to address the limited availability of scale-up funding in the UK must be rapidly progressed, or we will continue to see an exodus of capital, companies and pioneering technology to the United States.
- Adoption: public procurement and incentives. The Government can lead the way in adopting engineering biology through the power of public procurement, as we have seen in the US with its BioPreferred model, but this requires adopting a healthy appetite for risk and making a clear statement that procurement budgets are to be used in part to support UK-based innovative companies and products. Many larger companies have biotechnology initiatives, but without incentives they will not shift production away from cheaper, but unsustainable fossil-fuel based processes. Faster adoption of bio-based processes is needed to deliver cost reduction through learning and scale. Sector-specific Government incentives or mandates are required to support the adoption of bio-based processes and help with market creation.
- Governance: The potential societal and economic benefits of engineering biology could be severely undermined by safety and acceptability concerns. There is need for renewed public engagement to ensure the benefits of these technologies are understood and concerns addressed. The UK must build on the Biological Security Strategy, and work with international partners, to ensure that malicious uses of engineering biology are prevented, and to ensure that the nation is protected against biological threats, whether engineered or natural.
A national sector champion for engineering biology should be appointed to coordinate this activity across government.
We believe, as Lord Vallance of Balham told our Committee, that there is a real opportunity for engineering biology to provide immense benefits to the UK. It can help us to address the challenges we face in health, sustainability, and in addressing climate change. There are major opportunities to grow the economy by applying this technology. We have many of the ingredients to make this a success. But this reaction requires a catalyst.
Without urgent action in the areas this report outlines, we are in danger of losing out as other countries catch up and overtake the UK’s level of investment and R&D. Lord Vallance indicated that we have a small—and closing—window of opportunity to realise these benefits in the UK. We cannot afford to miss it.