[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE FUTURE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY:
SOLUTIONS FOR ENERGY,
AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
December 8, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-54
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
STEVE KNIGHT, California MARK TAKANO, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington ERIC SWALWELL, California
GARY PALMER, Alabama EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
December 8, 2015
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Witnesses:
Dr. Mary Maxon, Biosciences Principal Deputy, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 12
Dr. Steve Evans, Fellow, Advanced Technology Development, Dow
AgroSciences
Oral Statement............................................... 24
Written Statement............................................ 26
Dr. Reshma Shetty, Co-Founder, Ginkgo Bioworks
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 34
Dr. Martin Dickman, Distinguished Professor and Director,
Institute for Plant Genomics and Biotechnology, Texas A&M
University
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 43
Dr. Zach Serber, Co-Founder, CSO, and Vice President of
Development, Zymergen
Oral Statement............................................... 54
Written Statement............................................ 57
Discussion....................................................... 61
Appendix I: Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 80
THE FUTURE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY:
SOLUTIONS FOR ENERGY,
AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURING
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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in
Room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. The Subcommittee on Research and
Technology will come to order. Without objection, the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Weber, is authorized to participate in today's
hearing.
And without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing entitled ``The
Future of Biotechnology: Solutions for Energy, Agriculture and
Manufacturing.''
In front of you are packets containing the written
testimony, biographies, and truth-in-testimony disclosures for
today's witnesses. I now recognize myself for five minutes for
an opening statement.
Humans have used biotechnology since the dawn of
civilization, manipulating biology to improve plants and
animals through hybridization and other methods.
Rapid advancements in science--scientific knowledge and
technology throughout the 20th century gave rise to the field
of modern biotechnology, making useful products to meet human
needs and demands. Biotechnology has become part of our
everyday lives, from producing the insulin used by diabetics,
to the corn we eat and use to produce fuel, to the detergent
that cleans our clothes.
Today, we are here to discuss what the future of
biotechnology will look like in this century, specifically for
solving some of our greatest 21st century challenges in energy,
agriculture, and manufacturing.
In June, the Subcommittee held a hearing on ``The Science
and Ethics of Genetically Engineered Human DNA.'' The hearing
looked at the research and issues surrounding the application
of new gene editing technologies for human health. I hope that
today's hearing will build upon that fascinating discussion,
and help inform a research and regulatory framework that
continues to ensure safety without stifling innovation.
The biotechnology and biological science industry is a
sizable and growing economic driver in our country. In
Virginia, the industry employs over 26,000 people across 1,500
companies and institutions, including the George Washington
University Ashburn Campus Computational Biology Institute
located in my district. Here, they apply technology tools to a
variety of funded research in pediatric medicine, coronary
heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and schizophrenia,
just to name a few.
Those are good-paying jobs, and I want to find ways to keep
those jobs in the United States and encourage young people to
study the STEM subjects needed to fill these jobs and create
new ones. But more importantly, these are jobs and an industry
that is going to improve our way of life and improve our health
and save lives.
So I appreciate and look forward to learning more about
these new and emerging technologies and their applications,
understand better the role of the federal government in funding
and regulating biotechnology, and hear from the witnesses about
the economic benefits to the United States and how we can stay
on the cutting edge of innovation.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Chairwoman Barbara Comstock
Humans have used biotechnology since the dawn of civilization,
manipulating biology to improve plants and animals through
hybridization and other methods.
Rapid advancements in scientific knowledge and technology
throughout the 20th Century, gave rise to the field of modern
biotechnology- making useful products to meet human needs and demands.
Biotechnology has become part of our everyday lives, from producing the
insulin used by diabetics, to the corn we eat and use to produce fuel,
to the detergent that cleans our clothes.
Today, we are here to discuss what the future of biotechnology will
look like in this century, specifically for solving some of our
greatest challenges in energy, agriculture and manufacturing.
In June, the Subcommittee held a hearing on the Science and Ethics
of Genetically Engineered Human DNA. The hearing looked at the research
and issues surrounding the application of new gene editing technologies
for human health. I hope that today's hearing will build upon that
fascinating discussion, and help inform a research and regulatory
framework that continues to ensure safety without stifling innovation.
The biotechnology and biological science industry is a sizable and
growing economic driver in the United States. In Virginia, the industry
employs over 26,000 people a cross 1,500 companies and institutions.
Including the George Washington University Ashburn Campus Computational
Biology Institute, located in my district. Here they apply technology
tools to a variety of funded research in pediatric medicine, coronary
heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and schizophrenia, to name
a few.
These are good paying jobs--and I want to find ways to keep those
jobs in the United States and encourage young people to study the STEM
subjects needed to fill those jobs and create new ones.
I look forward to learning more about these new and emerging
technologies and their applications, understand better the role of the
federal government in funding and regulating biotechnology, and hear
from the witnesses about the economic benefits to the United States.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize--I guess our Ranking
Member is not with us yet this morning but will be joining us
shortly. I know he does have a little bit of a flight delay but
will be with us shortly. And I appreciate Mr. Lipinski joining
us, and we will recognize him at that time.
But, let me see, we will--if there are Members who wish to
submit additional opening statements, your statements will be
added to the record at this point.
Chairwoman Comstock. Now, at this time I would like to
introduce our witnesses: Dr. Mary Maxon is the Biosciences
Principal Deputy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She
has previous experience as Assistant Director for Biological
Research at the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy, or OSTP, and has worked for a variety of biotech
organizations. Dr. Maxon earned her Ph.D. in molecular cell
biology from the University of California, Berkeley and did
postdoctoral research in biochemistry and genetics at the
University of California, San Francisco.
Our second witness today is Dr. Steve Evans. Dr. Evans is a
Fellow for Advanced Technology Development at Dow AgroSciences.
Dr. Evans is the past Chair of the Industrial Advisory Board of
the Synberc Synthetic Biology Consortium funded by the National
Science Foundation. Dr. Evans earned his bachelor's degrees in
chemistry and microbiology from the University of Mississippi
and his Ph.D. in microphysiology from the University of
Mississippi Medical Center.
Today's third witness is Dr. Reshma Shetty, Cofounder of
Ginkgo Bioworks. Dr. Shetty served as an advisor to the
International Genetically Engineered Machines competition,
where she was best known for engineering bacteria to smell like
bananas and mint, and was named by Forbes as one of the eight
people ``inventing the future'' in 2008. Dr. Shetty earned her
bachelor's in computer science from the University of Utah and
a Ph.D. in biological engineering from MIT.
Testifying next is Dr. Martin Dickman, Distinguished
Professor and Director of the Institute for Plant Genomics and
Biotechnology at Texas A&M. Dr. Dickman's research focuses on
the genetics and molecular biology of fungal-plant
interactions, and he established that parallels exist between
plant and animal systems, disease, and infection strategies.
Dr. Dickman earned his Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii.
Our final witness is Dr. Zach Serber, Cofounder and Vice
President of Development for Zymergen. Dr. Serber previously
worked as Director of Biology at Amyris, and as a Research
Fellow at Stanford University Medical School. Dr. Serber earned
his bachelor's degree from Columbia University, his master's in
neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh, and his Ph.D. in
biophysics from the University of California San Francisco.
As always, we are so honored to have such distinguished and
accomplished witnesses joining us here today.
And I now recognize Dr. Maxon for five minutes to present
her testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARY MAXON,
BIOSCIENCES PRINCIPAL DEPUTY,
LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Maxon. Chairwoman Comstock, Members of the Committee,
thank you for holding this very important meeting and for
inviting me to participate. I applaud the committee for
exploring the great potential that advanced biology has to
address the Nation's grand challenges and to stimulate
innovation. I believe a federally coordinated strategic program
that leverages the national labs and other existing federal
capabilities would greatly accelerate this.
I am the Biosciences Principal Deputy at Lawrence Berkeley
National lab and have enjoyed a 30-year career as a biologist.
Recently, I served as Assistant Director for Biological
Research at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where
I was the principal author of the National Bioeconomy
Blueprint.
Although my testimony represents my own views, I would be
remiss not to recognize the leadership of the Department of
Energy and Berkeley Lab in driving the Nation's engineering
biology capabilities forward. In particular, DOE's Office of
Biological and Environmental Research supports some of the
Nation's most foundational resources in this field.
DNA can be viewed as a programming language where, instead
of the 1's and 0's that are used to program computers, A's and
C's and G's and T's, the building blocks of DNA, are used to
program biology for useful purposes. While DNA can improve
agricultural yields, increased nutrients in soil, reduce the
need for water and fertilizers, it can be used to create bio-
solutions to reduce the demand for livestock-based protein
sources such as beef and poultry and for a planet with more
people and fewer resources. It can convert non-food biomass
into fuel and chemicals, and in the process, replace fossil
fuels. It can convert microbes into low-cost producers of drugs
and alter microbiomes to improve human and animal health.
Although DNA sequencing--that is, reading DNA--thanks in
large part to the Human Genome Project, is fast, cheap, and
democratic, meaning that researchers everywhere can now
sequenced DNA themselves, engineering biology--that is, writing
DNA--remains slow and expensive.
National labs can help change this dynamic. They can play
important roles in harnessing biology to meet national-scale
challenges and, in doing so, democratize engineering biology to
enable researchers everywhere to drive advancements across
fields of science and industrial applications. But currently
missing from this collection of high-throughput open--high-
throughput--sorry, currently missing from the collection of
national laboratory user facilities is a bio-foundry, a high-
throughput, open engineering biology facility powered by
capabilities in physical sciences and supercomputing to develop
freely available tools, technologies, and knowledge needed to
accelerate engineering biology and drive a sustainable national
bioeconomy.
Such a facility could accelerate scientific discovery,
reduce cost and time to market for new bioproducts that are
needed to transform manufacturing processes for both human and
environmental benefit. It would build on and capture a greater
return on DOE's existing investments in genome sequencing,
synthetic biology, and other engineering research capabilities.
Berkeley Lab has made an initial investment to launch an
open bio-foundry and has undertaken early proof-of-concept work
aimed at establishing a robust democratic platform technology
for the engineering of biology to provide fundamental advances
needed to transform manufacturing to reduce energy intensity
and negative environmental impacts of traditional
manufacturing.
Recent industry listening sessions held by Berkeley Lab
indicate that, in addition to user facilities, national labs
can serve at least four unique and important functions for
industry: 1) meet vital research needs that are considered off-
mission by the company investors; 2) validate technologies from
the academic sector for companies, which is currently a cost--a
time-consuming and frequently unproductive endeavor for
industry, and provide for the transfer of technical expertise
and capacity-building directly by embedding industry
researchers in the bio-foundry; and lastly, by providing access
to flexible pilot-scale production facilities to enable
research advances in understanding how to predict large-scale
production of bioproducts, currently something of a holy grail.
I applaud the Committee for its interest in the topic of
engineering biology and believe that a vision for a strong,
long-term research and development program, including research
in the ethical, environmental, and social aspects of
engineering biology, is needed for the United States to lay a
solid foundation on which to build a robust and responsible
biomanufacturing future, create new markets and jobs, and drive
the U.S. bioeconomy.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Maxon follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Doctor.
And Mr. Lipinski has now joined us so I'm just going to
take a little break here on the witness testimony and allow
Congressman Lipinski to give his opening statement.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. And I thank
the witnesses for being willing to deal with this little
interruption here. I want to thank the Chairwoman for holding
this hearing and look forward to--I thank Dr. Maxon for her
testimony and look forward to all the testimony here this
morning.
One of the reasons I chose to be on the Science Committee,
and on this subcommittee in particular, is that we have the
opportunity to learn firsthand about new and emerging research
fields and technologies that will transform society and to hear
what the federal government can do to help society benefit from
these technologies.
This morning is no different. Today, we will hear about new
technologies that have the potential to transform the energy,
agricultural, and manufacturing sectors. A number of these new
biotechnologies are based in engineering biology research,
which is research at the intersection of biology, physical
sciences, engineering, and information technology. This
emerging field has been fueled by the development and increased
affordability of technology such as DNA sequencing and DNA
synthesis.
In the case of DNA sequencing, the Human Genome Project, an
international research project to sequence the human genome,
was coordinated by the Department of Energy and the National
Institutes of Health, and it took over a decade and cost $2.7
billion. Remarkably, sequencing the human genome now costs less
than $1,500.
Federal agencies under this committee's jurisdiction have
significant programs in engineering biology. The Department of
Energy has invested in programs focused on bioenergy. The
National Science Foundation has invested in this area both in
individual research awards and through their support of an
engineering research center, Synberc at UC Berkeley.
NASA and NIST also have programs in this area. NIST has a
particularly important role in the development of technical
standards for a future biomanufacturing economy. And of course,
agencies outside the Committee's jurisdiction, including DARPA,
NIH, and the Department of Agriculture, are also significant
players in this research.
Due to the importance of this growing research field, the
Nation would benefit not just from increased investment at
individual agencies but also from coordination of federal
efforts under some kind of national plan or strategy.
Additionally, we should ensure that we are facilitating
public-private partnerships. Given the potential commercial
applications across nearly all sectors of our economy, there is
a need to engage and encourage private sector collaboration at
a pre-competitive level. I look forward to hearing from all of
our private sector witnesses what they are looking for in
partnerships with federal agencies, national labs, and
universities.
And finally, we must pay careful attention to the issues of
human and environmental safety and ethics when it comes to
engineering biology research, including support of research on
these topics.
The future of biotechnology could include automotive and
even jet fuels produced cheaply, cleanly, and safely by
specifically engineered bacteria, also, more drought- and pest-
tolerant crops and feedstocks, and also, transformation of
materials manufacturing with applications across our economy.
These technologies would have significant economic benefit for
the United States. So it is important that we make the
necessary federal investments in the foundational research and
partner with the private sector across the potential
application areas.
I look forward to the rest of the witness testimony and the
Q&A, and I thank you for being here today. I yield back the
balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I'll now recognize Dr. Evans for his five minute
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. STEVE EVANS,
FELLOW, ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT,
DOW AGROSCIENCES
Dr. Evans. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking
Member Lipinski, and Members of the House Subcommittee on
Research and Technology. Thank you and--for inviting me here to
represent my company Dow AgroSciences in this hearing on
emerging biotechnology applications.
We trace our roots in agriculture back 60 years, and we
emerge from the Dow Chemical Company, a company that has been
transforming technology into viable solutions since 1897.
The drivers for application of biotechnology into
agriculture are clear. The global demands for food, fuel,
fiber, and feed are strong and rising. The solutions to meet
this global need must be met within increasing constraints and
unpredictability, reinforcing the need to make newer product
offerings even more sustainable.
We have all heard of the challenge set forth for global
needs by 2050, and between now and that point in time,
agriculture will need to produce more food than the sum total
of what has been produced in the last 10,000 years. Since their
introduction in the mid-1990s, agriculture biotechnology
offerings have made significant contributions to global food
security, and biotechnology-based crops are the fastest-adopted
crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
If you were to visit an early-stage laboratory in--R&D
laboratory in Dow AgroSciences, you would see the tools and
techniques that are used in common bioscience endeavors. Early-
stage ag biotechnology benefits from the same molecular
biology, bioinformatics, DNA sequencing, high-throughput
analytical systems, and other advances from basic life sciences
that have been funded by federal research.
One of the ways that Dow AgroSciences has benefitted from
advances in related fields is by being able to provide input
and shape ideas for technology in something like the NSF
engineering research centers. Synberc, as has already been
mentioned, brings together 37 professors, 18 universities, and
47 companies with the stated mission of making biology easier
to engineer. As past Chair of that Industrial Advisory Board, I
note that a portion of the companies they are represent
established ag companies but also smaller startups with
concepts in the agricultural space.
The RC provides a unique precompetitive venue for industry
participation and influence in the technology development. And
some of the tools that have been developed there are now being
brought into our company directly and used by Dow AgroSciences.
I recently examined some patent activity by other ag players,
and you can see that those technologies are being broadly
adopted at the early stages of most of the agricultural
companies.
But to really understand and develop a realistic
expectation for when these things would appear in agricultural
products, you'd have to understand a little bit about
biotechnology development timelines. A typical range of
development spans seven to ten years and an average investment
price tag of over $130 million per product. While laboratory
tools and technologies just described play an important role in
performing and accelerating that front end, we are still faced
with multiple challenges at national and international
regulatory frameworks.
Companies can understand and manage the risks related to
product performance and customer choice. However, because of
the time horizon of nearly a decade and a cost of $100 million,
to make informed investment decisions, we need to have a
regulatory approval process that is predictable to enable
scientific planning. That regulatory process needs to be
science-based and proportionate to risk.
In addition to using biotechnology for modern crops, we
have an offering in Dow AgroSciences that is based on
agrochemicals derived from natural products. We--taken
together, products and chemistries that are inspired by natural
products account for 1/4 of the global ag chemistry sales. One
challenge in developing those natural products, whether for
farm or ag, is that we need to attain sufficient productivity
to make that product economically viable.
Dow AgroSciences platform to integrate those biotechnology
tools, either from external sources or from internal
capabilities aimed at rational engineering of our strains is
how we use engineering biology in our platform. Nationally
funded research has enabled key milestones in that field, but
the United States is not alone in recognizing the economic and
environmental benefit to be derived from commercial
manufacturing of novel natural products or chemistries inspired
by them.
So finally, I will propose that a framework for involvement
of the federal government can be understood in terms of three
C's. Number one, continue to support exceptional science;
number two, convene forums for discussion on development and
risk-proportionate oversight; and number three, create a
strategic vision for the United States biotechnology
investments to produce exceptional solutions for the world's
most pressing needs.
These actions are important to maintain the United States'
position of leadership and development in this technology, and
it's an increasingly competitive and global race. Within these
fields, these investments provide technology, a workforce of
new skill talent and predictable science-based regulatory
framework from which companies like ours can make informed
investment decisions for products taking over a decade to bring
to market.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Evans follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Dr. Evans.
Now, I will recognize Dr. Shetty for a five minute
statement.
TESTIMONY OF DR. RESHMA SHETTY,
CO-FOUNDER, GINKGO BIOWORKS
Dr. Shetty. Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski,
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to testify here today on the
future of biotechnology and its applications in energy and
agriculture and manufacturing. My name is Reshma Shetty, and
I'm a co-Founder and President of Ginkgo Bioworks, a
biotechnology startup in Boston, Massachusetts. I hold a Ph.D.
in biological engineering from MIT and have been active in the
field of biological engineering for over 10 years.
Today, I was asked to testify a little bit about Ginkgo's
story as a case study for how federal investment in emerging
technologies can stimulate the growth of new companies and new
industries and make recommendations for how the U.S. Government
can continue to stimulate the growth of the domestic
biotechnology industry.
Ginkgo is an organism company. We design and build microbes
such as yeast to spec for customers. Our customers use Ginkgo
microbes in fermentation. Fermentation is a process by which
cooking is done with microbes rather than heat. Humans have
been fermenting foods and beverages like yogurt, beer, and wine
for more than 9,000 years, so it's a very old technology.
At Ginkgo we design yeast to make new products from
fermentation or what we call cultured products. Our first
commercial organisms are microbes for the production of
cultured ingredients, so ingredients end up in household
consumer goods, things like sweeteners, flavors, fragrances,
vitamins. So, for example, Gingko is developing a yeast to
produce a rose fragrance, what we call a cultured rose. Other
companies are making cultured products such as animal-free
cultured leather, animal-free cultured meat, cultured milk,
cultured silk for making jackets, and so on.
I started Ginkgo in 2008 with four fellow MIT Ph.D.'s,
including Tom Knight, who is widely considered to be a father
of the field of synthetic biology. Quite frankly, at the time I
knew almost nothing about what it took to start and run a
company. What I did know was that biological technologies were
going to be incredibly important in this century, and I had
ideas about what were the important technologies to be working
on and developing.
Federal grants and contracts from the NSF SBIR program, DOE
ARPA-E, NIST, and DARPA all provided absolutely critical
funding for Ginkgo in our early days as we transitioned from
MIT and university life to the real world. Today, we've raised
more than $50 million of private investment, have built an
18,000 square foot facility in Boston for manufacturing of
microbes, and we have commercial contracts for more than 20
different cultured ingredients. In the last 6 months we've
doubled our workforce and more than 1/4 of which actually live
in the 5th District of Massachusetts and are represented by
Congresswoman Clark. In short, your investments help make
Ginkgo what it is today.
In the early days of the computer industry, the U.S.
Government played a critical role in nurturing the nascent
industry through both R&D funding and through serving as an
early customer for integrated circuits via the Apollo program.
This federal investment was critical in creating demand for
integrated circuits and stimulated a significant later private
investment in this space. The computer industry would not be
the major economic and job engine for the U.S. economy that it
is today if it weren't for the U.S. Government's role.
I believe that the U.S. Government has an opportunity to
play a similar role in the emerging biological engineering
industry. Ginkgo itself is evidence of the payoff that the
federal R&D investments can generate, and I urge you to build
on these early R&D investments in this space by recognizing the
importance of the U.S. Government as an early adopter of
biotechnology products.
With countries like the United Kingdom and China having
well-coordinated national programs in this area, the United
States is at risk for losing its competitive edge. By serving
as an early customer and stimulating demand for the products of
biotechnology, the U.S. Government could play a central role to
biotechnology today, as it did in the 1960s to the computer
industry.
In short, I suggest that the Committee 1) enhance U.S.
competitiveness in biotechnology via direct R&D funding for
public domain foundational technologies that are available for
all to use without intellectual property restrictions; 2)
continue to garner bipartisan support for H.R. 591 to establish
a national engineering biology research and development
program; and 3) recognize the importance of the U.S. Government
as an early customer for biologically engineered products.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Shetty follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
I now recognize Dr. Dickman for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARTIN DICKMAN,
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR,
INSTITUTE FOR PLANT GENOMICS
AND BIOTECHNOLOGY,
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Dr. Dickman. Thank you, and good morning, Chairwoman
Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you.
Among other things, I am also the Director of the Norman
Borlaug Center at Texas A&M University. I'm a plant pathologist
specializing in fungal diseases. But I wanted to use that title
as a prelude to just mention Dr. Borlaug, who is largely
responsible for the development and implementation of the Green
Revolution. And he has been widely acclaimed for this work,
including such awards as a Nobel Prize, which is the only
agriculturist to be awarded this honor; the U.S. Presidential
Medal of Freedom--he's in company with Mother Teresa--U.S.
Congressional Gold Medal; and on and on and on.
But what Dr. Borlaug represented besides breeding plants
that had desirable attributes was a dogged determination to try
to ensure his best possible of feeding people throughout the
world. And he's had a modicum of success with that. In fact,
one of his other achievements is that he saved a lot of lives,
but he has considered to have saved more lives than any other
living human being ever.
So the mission of our institute, the Institute of Plant
Genomics and Biotechnology in the Borlaug Center, is to foster
these ideals and progress using what's available and these
developing technologies that we've heard a little bit about
already this morning to increase our understanding of how
things work in the ag biotechnology space. We want to improve
agronomic traits for crop plants, and importantly, we want to
prepare young scientists with the necessary technical and
conceptual tools to face the inevitable challenges that lie
ahead.
As food safety and security concerns continue and are
likely to increase, it is clear that a new green revolution is
needed. There is increased urbanization limiting land
availability, increased water use and energy demands,
unpredictable climate changes, coupled with pollution and soil
erosion. When taken together collectively, they all contribute
to a reduction in yield, and from a grower's point of view,
yield is certainly the bottom line. We now face the task of
growing more food on the same or even diminishing amounts of
land.
So on the remainder of my time this morning I just want to
highlight three biotechnological approaches that have varying
degrees of risk but all have the potential for really, really
high rewards. And again, because of time, I will pick and
choose some of the success stories that we in the institute, as
well as around the world, have employed to address some of
these biotechnological approaches. So the three approaches I'm
going to talk about is synthetic biology, which has already
been mentioned; the phytobiome; and genome editing, which
you've heard about in the past, and their impact on agriculture
and food production.
So in terms of synthetic biology, I'm going to talk about a
cotton project that we have been undertaking at--in Texas A&M.
Cotton has a very, very high degree of protein in its seed.
It's about 25 percent. That's a lot. Therefore, the potential
for cottonseed to help feed people is evident. However, the
cottonseed also contains immune problems and cause male
sterility, thus sort of precluding their application in the
real world. So breeders at A&M bred out--very simply bred out
that particular compound called gossypol so it was no longer
present in the plant and everything looked pretty good. The
problem was gossypol is also a defense compound in plants
limiting insect and fungal diseases, and when you got rid of
gossypol, the plants were basically open game to these
pathogens and parasites, and so the operation was a success but
the patient died.
So how to explore this was done with some of these new
techniques, which I won't get into too much detail unless
you're interested, and that is using virus-induced gene
silencing and plant--and genomics and synthetic biology work at
A&M was able to not only knock the gene out that made gossypol
but also direct that construct into the seed tissue itself.
These are very nice, powerful, significant techniques. So now,
gossypol would be expressed in the plant. However, it would not
be expressed only in the seed. Therefore, they were gossypol-
free and the seed could be produced, okay?
To give you an idea of the scope of this, and we have
sent--several patents filed and many, many field tests that
have gone on around the world with these cotton plants is that
it is estimated that with the addition of this cottonseed as a
protein source, 500 million more people can now be fed. So this
is the kind of conclusions we would like to see more of and
highlight, but it also illustrates the approaches. There was no
way these experiments and these conclusions could have been
obtained without biotechnological approaches that were
implemented and have been relatively new on the scene.
Now, the other sort of crop example I want to give is
bananas. I better hurry up. Bananas, very quickly, are
seedless. And I'm not going to go into the details. But if you
go to the store and buy a banana, there's no seed. Therefore,
genetics and breeding are impossible. Now, bananas are a staple
in a number of developing countries, and when they have
diseases now, there's no program to study these diseases and
solve this problem.
So we have transgenic approaches going on with bananas
right now both in Africa and Australia and in the United States
that are successfully impacting banana diseases. If the banana
diseases are uncontrolled in banana-consuming countries, people
starve, people die.
All right. The next topic I'm going to whiz through is the
phytobiome. And all I want to point out here is it turns out
the microflora, the endophytes, if you will, is a fancy word,
and it found in virtually all plants impact a great deal of
attributes that enhance the crop in question. So these--the
phytobiome will--for example, will enhance drought tolerance,
disease control, but only in the areas where they need this to
happen.
So in work, for example, done by Dr. Rodriguez, he found in
Yellowstone that a certain type of microflora associated with
thermal-tolerant plants looked different from microbiome in the
ocean, which conferred salt tolerance. So what I'm getting to
is the fact that we can utilize phytobiome research to
establish these probiotic microorganisms, and plants will make
the necessary changes to control the stress that they are faced
with. This is a new, high-risk, but very user-friendly control
mechanism.
The last part is involving CRISPR, which I know you've
already heard about. So all I'm going to say about CRISPR,
which doesn't have the same implications as the human
application, CRISPR in plants has two major advances that are
very exciting to the plant community. One is multi-plexing and
the ability to put numerous genes--numerous gene mutations in
one genetic background, and the other is breeding. CRISPR is
likely to revolutionize breeding. Breeding is a game of
creating variation in plants and then going through all the
characterization that needs to be done to understand the nature
of that variation. Well, with CRISPR, you can make--you can
make unlimited genetic variation by using this tool, thus
obviating the need for chemicals and all the considerable work
and time and effort that need to be done.
So I will just come to my conclusions and just say that I
want to remind everyone that all food that's consumed is
genetically modified. We need a new green revolution to face
the coming needs and continuing needs of people throughout the
world, and we need to support basic research to make the
conclusions verified. In other words, many of the great
discoveries are only done by unintended consequences,
penicillin being a good example, which you could call him
sloppy microbiologist. He found contamination that was
inhibiting bacteria, and really that's the key. And the other
one is CRISPR, which is really a study of immune issues in a
bacterium led to the CRISPR technology that we discussed in
quite a bit of detail here and in previous meetings of this
group.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Dickman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Great. Thank you, Dr. Dickman. And I
know we did go over our time, but you're educating us, and so I
figured it's better for you to take up that time probably than
some of us. So thank you, and we appreciate your enthusiasm,
all of you.
I now recognize Dr. Serber.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ZACH SERBER,
CO-FOUNDER, CSO, AND VICE PRESIDENT
OF DEVELOPMENT, ZYMERGEN
Dr. Serber. Good morning. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock,
Ranking Member Lipinski, and the rest of the Committee, for the
opportunity to testify today on a topic that I've devoted my
career to expanding the impact of advanced biotechnology.
A decade ago I was one of hundreds if not thousands of
early career scientists and engineers who left academia to
devote our human capital to extending the reach of
biotechnology. Whereas biotechnology is synonymous for many
people with the field dedicated to medical therapeutics,
biotechnology also has the potential to transform other fields,
including energy, agriculture, and manufacturing. The prospect
of vastly expanding the societal and economic impact of our
technical expertise attracted me and many other scientists,
including Dr. Shetty, to new endeavors focused on realizing
these potential far-reaching applications.
Single-celled organisms--microbes--are the most versatile
chemical factories on the planet. Dr. Shetty has already
explained how engineering microbes can be used as microscopic
biofactories. This is the basis for what has been dubbed the
new bioeconomy in which companies increasingly rely on biology
to source the materials used in their products.
This is, however, not a new manufacturing paradigm. Today,
chemicals made via large-scale fermentation are employed in a
wide variety of agricultural and industrial applications, and,
excluding ethanol, comprise over $66 billion in revenue
globally, or roughly ten percent as much as petrochemicals.
While a relatively small percentage, the rate of growth of
chemicals made biologically is greater than ten percent
annually, whereas the petrochemical market is growing at less
than seven percent. In time, chemicals made via fermentation
may come to dominate the overall chemicals market.
My company, Zymergen, was founded recently in 2013 to
contribute to this expanding market. Our core business is to
use biotechnology to rapidly and reliably engineer microbes
used in the manufacturing of chemicals for a variety of
applications. Zymergen is under contract with Fortune 500
companies to improve the manufacturing economics of chemicals
they currently make in large-scale fermentation by engineering
the single-celled biofactories they already use.
Our ability to realize this incredible potential relies not
only on scientists and engineers but also on government policy
that supports this type of research and innovation. Having
interacted with dozens of large domestic producers of goods
made through fermentation, I should mention that Zymergen fully
supports the July 2 White House memorandum on modernizing the
regulatory system for biotechnology products, which directs the
relevant federal agencies to develop a long-term strategy to
ensure that the biotechnological regulatory system is prepared
for the rapidly changing future of our industry.
I can confidently say that the current regulatory system is
full of inconsistencies and scientifically unsound
characterizations. This regulatory system has not kept up with
changes in the technology, creating confusion, delays, and
inefficiencies. It is our hope that the EPA, FDA, and USDA can
efficiently and rapidly update the coordinated framework.
Two-and-a-half years ago, Zymergen had three founders.
Today, we have 93 employees. Growth has not slowed and we are
on pace to more than double in staff size in 2016. This rapid
growth is not based on speculation. Quite the contrary, our
challenge to date has been excessive market demand. We are
working day and night to keep up. Our customers are large,
established manufacturers of chemicals made through
fermentation. As they seek to reduce costs and increase
manufacturing productivity and competitiveness, they see
Zymergen and our technology as essential to maintaining
competitiveness.
Zymergen depends on cross-disciplinary research. Our
engineers and scientists are trained in fields including
microbiology, genetic engineering, robotics, chemical
engineering, and machine learning. Our most valuable employees
are rare individuals with expertise in multiple relevant
domains, able to bridge the gaps between, for example, genome
editing and software engineering. Federally supported
educational and training programs are critical to providing us
with the staff we need to grow and fulfill our potential.
Recent activities in our space supported both through
public and private sector investment have dramatically altered
what is now possible through biotechnology. So while Zymergen
has initially devoted our insights to improving the economics
of existing products, the approaches developed enable us also
to expand the palliative chemicals that can be made through
biology. This amounts to a technological revolution likely as
important to advancing societal well-being, national security,
and economic productivity and competitiveness as the invention
of the transistor or the invention of heavier-than-air flight.
In keeping with this promise, we recently contracted with
the DARPA's new Biological Technologies Office under their
Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules program. This program is
developing new capabilities that will enable biomanufacturing
of known or novel chemicals on demand and at scale. As few as
three years ago, entire companies in this arena were founded to
develop a single chemical product. With the support of DARPA,
we at Zymergen are pushing the technology to develop new
biosynthetic pathways for over 300 specific chemicals of
interest. We are targeting an overall 20-fold cost reduction in
new product development.
Further, our team of biologists, engineers, and material
scientists are choosing these chemicals to form the basis for
new materials. These materials are expected to have novel
properties in categories as wide-ranging as thermal stable
plastics, marine adhesives, and antiseptic battlefield
dressings.
While the potential application of each new material
generates considerable interest, what excites me and my
colleagues at Zymergen most is the creation of a cutting-edge
technological platform designed to accelerate innovation in new
materials, an area where innovation has slowed, and
importantly, an area historically completely unrelated to
biotechnology. This is but an example of the myriad ways
biotechnology can impact the U.S. economy and improve society.
I am pleased this hearing presents an opportunity to engage in
dialogue about ways we can work together to realize the
potential of this industry.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Serber follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. I thank the witnesses for their
testimony. Now, I recognize myself for questions for five
minutes.
Dr. Shetty, you've testified that one of the potential
barriers to biomanufacturing is public acceptance of these
products and sometimes concerns that come up. Can you discuss
that a little, both the concerns and how to address them? And I
really would invite all of you--I think you've all addressed
that a little bit--but how we can best proceed in this and
address some of the more alarming reactions in an informed and
scientific way.
Dr. Shetty. Absolutely. Thank you for the question,
Chairwoman Comstock.
It's interesting. To date, biotechnology has largely been
behind the scenes, right? The--people are not always aware that
the foods they eat, the medicines they take are made with the
products of biotechnology. However, I think we're seeing a
shift. As the technologies are improving, more and more
consumer-facing products are coming out onto the marketplace.
So Ginkgo's cultured rose is an example. I also alluded to
others in my testimony, so animal-free versions of milk, of
meat, and, you know, there are companies making spider silk
using yeast and spinning that into jackets. So a Japanese
company named Spiber is partnering with North Face to bring out
a spider silk jacket that's currently touring Japan.
So I think what you're going to see over the next few years
is that biotechnology is going to be interacting more and more
directly with the consumer, and this is going to change a--
drive a shift in attitudes naturally. And with that shift in
attitudes, you're going to see a greater public acceptance of
this--of these kind of technologies.
That being said, we continue to have a responsibility to
ensure transparency in our sector. So, you know, there are
obviously a lot of concerns around, you know, what does a
supply chain look like for the products I buy? Should I be
seeing certain labels on my foods or in my--the products I buy?
I think really a lot of those conversations really stem
from a desire for information, a desire for knowledge. And what
I'm excited about actually is that through biotechnology we can
actually increase the transparency of our supply chains. If my
yeast are growing these products in a fermenter in the middle
of Iowa, it's a lot easier for me to understand where exactly
my--the products I'm buying at the grocery store come from.
And so, in short, I would suggest that were seeing a
transformation happen. As the tools get better and better, more
and more consumer-facing products are going to be coming out
onto the market and drive a change in attitudes.
Dr. Dickman. If I could just chime in quickly----
Chairwoman Comstock. Yes.
Dr. Dickman. --to be the devil's advocate, I think in the
past--and I agree with much of what you said, Dr. Shetty--I
would argue that academic scientists who are unfamiliar with
have--we have not done a great job in communicating to the
public what it is we do and why it is so vitally important. I
think that's changing now, but the--a lot of what you see in
the newspapers are sort of peer-based sort of newsworthy items.
You never hear about the success stories that are also going on
and actually in much more abundance. So I think we just need to
be sensitive to the public to a large part being uninformed
properly to what it is we do. And we're all--myself, as well as
companies, until recently have not really dealt with that. In
my view, we can do a better job of showing the great things
that this powerful set of technologies can in fact do.
Chairwoman Comstock. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
And I will now yield to Mr. Lipinski for five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. It's been really very interesting,
and I've learned a lot here, although I still can't say I
exactly know what you're doing.
But I want to throw this more general question out there
and have everyone tell me what you think can be done because I
know that Dr. Shetty had talked about U.K. and China have
work--well-coordinated national programs in synthetic biology.
So I want to start with Dr. Shetty. And you talked a little bit
about this, but what do you think along those same lines that
we should be doing? The big thing here is you're here to tell
us what we can do to be helpful in moving things forward and we
have the best benefits for our society here. So, Dr. Shetty,
what would you--anything else you would recommend? I know you
talked about quite a few things.
Dr. Shetty. Yes, so I think one of the things we need to
appreciate is that biotechnology today is not just about health
and medicine, right? And I think this hearing is testimony to
that. Biotechnology in the future is going to have major
impacts in many other areas besides health and medicine,
including, you know, manufacturing, agriculture, and energy. So
I think what needs to happen is that there needs to be a
national recognition of that importance, and we need to push
forward a more organized national funding program in this area.
And so H.R. 591 is a step in this direction, and I would
encourage you to garner bipartisan support for this bill and
push it forward.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. Dr. Serber, do you have anything?
So what are other countries doing? You know, what can we do
that we're not doing?
Mr. Serber. A couple of things come to mind. So amongst
them is a coordinated roadmap. The efforts in the United States
are fragmented. The support for this growing industry doesn't
have a clear home base for lobbying, for support, for garnering
the kind of widespread development of the tools that we're
going to require to push forward the sector.
I mentioned a couple of times that we're receiving DARPA
support, and I believe that today in the field of synthetic
biology DARPA has far and away provided more support than any
other federal agency for this enterprise. I think it amounts to
roughly 60 percent of the dollars spent by the federal
government in 2015 to this new field.
DARPA's a very small agency, and they can't go it alone,
and their focus is on creating a preventing strategic surprise.
So their application space is understandably focused. I'm
looking forward to other agencies using that as inspiration to
build support base, funding for additional research both in
academia and translational research. I'm looking for
educational programs to help give the cross-disciplinary
familiarity because to succeed in this field requires expertise
not in the silos of biology or chemistry or physics or computer
science, but rather cross-trained individuals who are equally
versed in aspects of all of the above to really push the field
forward.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. Anyone else wants to go? Dr.
Evans?
Dr. Evans. So I think one of the things that you can see
looking over the history of this technology space, the United
States, through some very aggressive, risky, early technology
investments, pioneered the field. I think when people are
rewriting--or writing the history looking back from 100 years
or so, they will see that these early federal efforts pioneered
the field nationally and led globally with the idea that
engineering biology could become that next revolution on the
scale of technology development along the first Industrial
Revolution.
However, as Dr. Serber was showing, there isn't now in the
United States a coordinated framework of either the research or
of how it can be effectively moved into market acceptance. And
so when you look at some of the things that the other countries
are doing, they are attempting to make sure that industry and
academics are being mushed together to an extent. So the
centers that are being funded particularly in the U.K. require
some joint industry, government, and academic input. And I
continue to point to Synberc as a very good example of that
domestically.
But all of this will have the same challenge that the U.S.
biotechnology industry had in the mid-1980s when we were trying
to apply genetic engineering techniques to recombinant bacteria
for release into the environment for bioremediation and other
things that are going to be logical outcomes of all of the
biome research. So we're going to have paper after paper that
says wouldn't this be cool or important if we could do this in
engineering a phytobiome? But there's not going to be a
regulatory path to get an engineered prokaryotic organism out
into the environment because we just haven't dealt with those
questions. They were brought up, stopped, and dropped.
And so coordinating that kind of federal research that
helps build extramural research centers that might be needed to
deal with questions around release will be very important to
realize the broad application of some of the engineering
technologies that require deliberate release outside of
contained fermentation.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. And I'm over time here so I'm
going to--I think I'm going to have to yield back. Thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. Great. Thank you. And I now recognize
Mr. Moolenaar for five minutes.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank
all of you for being with us here today and for your testimony.
And I wanted to follow up on some of the things that have
been discussed. One is in the area of coordinated research you
mentioned, both long-term research, you know, market
acceptance, coordinated roadmaps, strategic plan. It seems like
those themes keep coming up. And then there's also the
coordinated framework for the regulation of biotechnology that
hasn't been updated since 1992. And I'm assuming the memo--the
White House memo was instructing that that would be updated. Is
that correct?
Who--I've heard different agencies mentioned, the EPA,
USDA, FDA. Who is the point on that? Is there one agency that
the convener in that? Dr. Maxon?
Ms. Maxon. The Office of Science and Technology Policy is
working with all three agencies because all three agencies
regulate products that are biotechnology products. One of the
challenges I think my colleagues have referred to is there are
bio-innovations that straddle agencies, that seem to belong
partly in the domain of the USDA and partly in the domain of
the FDA, and the EPA for that matter. There are examples where
all three agencies might be involved.
So I think what's really promising about this is there will
be an opportunity to not only update but also to clarify the
roles of the agency. Who is the lead agency when a company
wants to have discussions? So all three and the Office of
Science and Technology Policy are working together.
Mr. Moolenaar. And are you all giving input to that
process? Do you feel like you're at the table discussing that
with them?
Dr. Maxon. I know there was a recent request for
information. Several companies did submit information. There
will be another chance. A couple of more--I think there are two
more public meetings scheduled. The first one was held on
September 30, I believe, at the FDA. There'll be two other
meetings scheduled around the country starting in January, I
believe. There'll be plenty of opportunity.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay. And then what's the timing on--would
it be a new rule, a new regulation, a framework that comes out
and then there'd be a public comment period after that
framework comes out?
Dr. Maxon. I can't speak to the definite product of the
expected products. I do know that in addition to the work at
the agencies, their will--around the coordinated framework
itself, there will be--there's an expectation, as outlined in
the memo, for a long-term strategic plan to be delivered in a
fairly short time frame by the agency. So they have a couple of
jobs to do. But I do believe that there will be open comment on
any product that comes out.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay. Any others have any comment on that?
Dr. Serber. Many of the partner companies we work with who
are already engaged in large-scale manufacturing are stimulated
to become involved in this process by--the writing is on the
wall for them that if they don't embrace the new technology,
their competitiveness with the products that they make will be
eclipsed by others who have. So this framework is really
required to maintain the United States' lead in the
manufacturing of many of these goods, without which we will be
stuck manufacturing products using 1980s, 1990s technologies,
and others will be employing the more advanced technologies and
have better economics around manufacturing.
Mr. Moolenaar. And is the framework the same as the
strategic plan or is that totally different?
Dr. Maxon. These are two different----
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay.
Dr. Maxon. Yes.
Mr. Moolenaar. And then who is driving the strategic plan?
Dr. Maxon. I believe from the memo the effort is the
Administration with the Office of Science and Technology Policy
in concert with the three regulatory agencies. But I believe
OSTP is working with the agencies. I didn't want to say they're
running it but they're coordinating it.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay. Dr. Evans, did you have a comment on
that?
Dr. Evans. Not on the last question, I was--on your
question before. You know the thing that is important is the
predictability. That is what is important for us in, say, the
ag industry where our development timelines are a decade. And
so when you have policy shifts or in--particularly when you
have policy frameworks that don't have a strong science base so
that you can bring data to the decision to try to move and have
an informed and data-driven process. That's where things get
increasingly challenging for us to make investment decisions
that are reliable and robust.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you
for your insights.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Congressman Abraham.
Mr. Abraham. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Dr. Dickman, let's go back to you for just a second. You
referenced the MAGE and the CAGE, the multiplex automatic
genomic engineering and the computer-aided on your research.
It's certainly my belief and I think the belief of many of us
that world security is the food scarcity or having food
security for underdeveloped nation. And I think one of the
criteria for being an underdeveloped nation is that you simply
can't provide enough food for your people. So in my opinion
this is another piece of the pie that we fight world terrorism
with, that we're able to feed the people that can actually do
some good and do some good things.
So I guess the question is how far in your crystal ball are
we away from really getting there to some of these
underdeveloped nations of these technologies where you can
potentially grow wheat in the middle of a desert or you can
increase yields by five to ten percent? Where are we in the
timeline there?
Dr. Dickman. Well, it depends if the glass is half-full or
half-empty.
Mr. Abraham. Right.
Dr. Dickman. Certainly, there are a lot of positive
progresses that are being made in developing countries, but
it's a complex--it's not a compound, but it's a complex issue.
There's a lot of politics involved, and while the growers
generally support these kinds of plans and roots to food
production, they're often hampered by politicians and people of
other interests. So the hurdles to overcome, depending on the
country you're talking to, are considerable.
But I might add, for it--but it can be done. Let me--
bananas, to use something I know a little bit about, are now in
human field trials actually in Iowa with the hope that the
hoops have gone through sufficiently to put them out on a
humanitarian effort in Africa in another year as bananas--you
know, the rice--Golden Rice, which is even making vitamin A and
preventing blindness in children, has run into lots of--which
has been heavily advertised and it's sort of the poster child
for transgenic crop plants has slowed down considerably due to
regulatory hurdles.
So to answer your question, to where it would be a viable
economy with an assortment of crop plants, we're probably
talking ten years as well I would say realistically.
Mr. Abraham. Okay. That's a good enough ballpark. At least
we've got some thing we can--maybe put our toe in the water in
so to speak.
Dr. Serber--and I'll go to Dr. Evans or anybody on the
panel who wants to answer this--you mentioned the Swiss cheese,
I guess, effect of our regulatory process here in the States,
but you also mentioned that we need to accelerate innovation,
and those two are pretty much diametrically opposed. But
anytime we regulate, we slow down the process tremendously.
So the balance of--I'll flip to the health side for just a
minute with the CRISPR technology and the Cas9. We have the
potential and the ability, I think even now, to cure single
mutations, single gene mutations, but again, we have countries
that are abusing this to the point of trying to manufacture a--
the perfect child or the perfect person. Where is the middle
ground here? Where do we start, I guess, is a question of how
we can accelerate innovation but at the same time make sure
that this wonderful technology doesn't fall into the hands of
some nefarious people?
Dr. Serber. The quick answer from my--and really, it's just
from our point of view--is the place to start is in simpler
systems. The mammalian application of these technologies is
more complicated when it comes to the ethical and legal
considerations. The application--the technology actually began
as a natural phenomenon in bacterium, and it has been applied
across the animal kingdom in very short order, given its power.
We at Zymergen apply those sorts of technologies in the
application of microbes like bacteria that--from which they
were originally found for the purposes of improving them in the
biocatalysis that they are used in large-scale fermentation.
This is a--makes for us from our perspective a nice testbed for
assessing the suitability of the technology in a regime that
certainly has oversight--I'm not implying for a moment it
doesn't--but doesn't raise as many issues as other applications
have. And as I think we learn more about the technology and its
applications and grow more comfortable with it in this sector,
it will be much easier and more natural to move it and expand
it into other sectors, which will include human health.
Mr. Abraham. All right. Thank you. I'm out of time, Madam
Chair.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Mr. Westerman for five
minutes.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here today.
I grew up in a time where I read stories about Dr. George
Washington Carver and the amazing things that he did, sort of
the man who can make something out of nothing with his research
on peanuts and sweet potatoes.
When I was in high school I thought I was just getting out
of school for a day but I was very involved in the Future
Farmers of America, and I got invited to a conference. It was
called the Governor's Conference on Agricultural Innovation. It
was hosted by then-Governor Bill Clinton and the special guest
was Norman Borlaug, so I got to be a member of that panel. I'm
not sure how that happened. If I'd known the significance of it
at the time, I might have listened a little bit closer.
But, you know, there was a time when people who did this
research and came up with all these great ideas were given
Nobel Prizes. There were departments at colleges named after
them. They won all kinds of awards and were viewed as heroes,
yet today, if you fast-forward, as a Member of Congress, I get
a lot of constituent feedback in opposition to the GMOs or any
kind of biological research. I did also--I attended forestry
school, and the time I was there it was during the--a lot of
the genome--human genome research. My undergraduate degree was
in biological and agricultural engineering, so I've kind of
followed this for a while.
But at the time the human genome was being mapped, the
genome of the pine tree was not--or was being worked on but it
was about seven times more complicated than the human genome.
And I believe in 2014 they finally mapped--or sequenced the
pine tree genome with about 23 billion pairs to it. And I know
that when you talk about biofuels, if you look at pine trees
and you look at the amount of lignin in the tree versus
cellulose, you could engineer a tree to make a lot more lignin,
which would create more biofuels or you could engineer it to
make more cellulose, which would be better than paper. So there
are a lot of benefits to this. But also, there seems to be a
lot of pushback.
Dr. Dickman, do you believe that gene editing technology is
related to crossbreeding or hybridization techniques that have
been used for thousands of years, or is it something totally
new that we should be afraid of?
Dr. Dickman. You're properly managed. I'll learn one of
these days.
I think--again, as was stated previously, the gene editing
technology is a much more serious issue in the biomedical field
because you're talking about generating transgenic people and
there's lots of ethical issues. But in terms of plants, they've
been mixing--naturally mixing populations, as you said,
thousands of years and naturally for the most part selecting
traits of interest.
But CRISPR and genome editing in general can convert the
plants field is a much more significant leap of time to get to
the desired product, much more power--experimental power. So
they're basically under the same--under a similar umbrella but
have different rates of progress. That is one reason why CRISPR
and genome editing is so exciting because the potential to
create variation in terms of breeding practices is virtually
unlimited and much, much more rapid and much more informed as--
toward the breeding population. So it confers a number of
advantages. Again, it comes back to public understanding what
exactly this is and how it works and why it's beneficial as
opposed to just being something, you know, with--DNA-related
and more concern that really should be alleviated.
Mr. Westerman. And I know from the forestry side there was
concerns about Franken-trees----
Dr. Dickman. Right.
Mr. Westerman. --you were going to plant these trees and
they would take over the landscape.
Dr. Dickman. The monster that ate Cleveland.
Mr. Westerman. Right.
Dr. Dickman. It hasn't happened yet.
Mr. Westerman. But most of these genetically modified
organisms, they require more of a specific environment to
survive, and in the natural world they can't propagate
themselves as well is my understanding of that.
Dr. Dickman. That's true. There's a lot of microbes out
there. I mean, as I was rushing to say, in the phytobiome work,
it's now become clear that these microorganisms confer a number
of different traits to the host plant that they're residing in,
and if you remove those microorganisms, you loose the trait,
you lose tolerance, you lose disease resistance. So if we can
understand the microbiome in plants or in any other--or even in
the human gut where it's being done quite extensively, that
gives us another avenue of approach to try to generate the
kinds of things we need to better the world.
Mr. Westerman. And, Dr. Evans, what are the environmental,
safety, and health impacts of genetically engineered plants and
animals?
Dr. Evans. I think that's a great question. Those are
things that have been well covered by the history of the
coordinating framework in bringing products through from the--
from initial registrations in 1995, 1996 on with the original
BD crops.
So both nationally and internationally these products have
had a large degree of oversight. There have been hundreds of
studies conducted by third parties, so independent researchers.
Of course, companies have to provide data. Even the
universities that are attempting to move some of these products
as they try to get into field trials have to provide safety and
environmental data.
So I think the concept of what is there from the large
company perspective, we don't see major gaps where we could
just try to drive something unregulated through the system. We
have a lot of desire to be able to want the public to have
confidence in these products because they're going to consume
them.
And so the thing we still need though is, you know, after
20 years the regulatory burden, the familiarity with the
products, and the technologies don't appear to be decreasing
the submission packages or time. And so things just keep
getting added and added, and they do not appear always to have
a strong scientific base.
And so I think the federal government can help provide some
research in some of the questions and independent research by
federal land-grant universities and such that could help move
that question down the road because we aren't going to be able
to feed the population of the planet, as has already been
discussed, by simply applying and hoping for the next
incremental increase in a breeding approach. There are things
that need to be brought to bear in this time frame to 2050 that
require novel solutions.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your
indulgence.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I now recognize Mr. Tonko for five minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Madam Chair. And welcome to the
panelists.
As a nation, we are woefully under-producing scientists and
engineers. In order to remain a competitive global economic
power in the 21st century, I believe that we as a nation need
to place a strong focus on STEM education. I fear that without
an increased commitment to STEM education, American students
will not be represented in the STEM fields and American workers
will be unable to compete for jobs or grow careers in the
enhancing STEM industries that exist.
It seems that this is the case in this area as well. In
fact, Dr. Saber's testimony mentions the need for employees
with expertise in multiple relevant domains. So to any of our
panelists, my question would be would you please discuss the
skills that are necessary, essential for emerging
interdisciplinary fields like the field that we're discussing
here today? Anyone?
Dr. Serber. I'll start but I think other members of the
panel have something to say about it. It's worth highlighting
that a panel like this is composed of people who've spent at
least a quarter-century in school apiece getting the skills
required to reach a level of just pure competence in the field.
And it's especially difficult given the long time horizons of
the educational program to stay current in a rapidly evolving
system. And having federal support to be nimble and flexible
around that to change the educational programs and support as
the technology improves is absolutely critical.
I found myself recently in conversations with faculty at UC
Berkeley discussing new master's programs that they want to
install with an eye towards training staff for jobs in
businesses and companies like that of Zymergen, the company
that I founded with two others, which certainly involves a lot
of biology but also more automation, robotics, computation,
computer science than you would think. And I'm finding that
there are certain educational programs across the United States
when I go higher that are particularly adept at cross training
graduate students and undergraduates for a future in this
career, which will be intrinsically cross-disciplinary. It is
no longer sufficient to get ahead in a technical field to be an
utter specialist in one area, at least by my estimation.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. I believe, Dr. Evans, you were going
to say something?
Dr. Evans. I think that if you look at what we need and the
students that are interesting to us, one of the places that I
get a lot of encouragement is looking at something like iGEM,
the program that's focused at not only the college level but
there are high school teams competing in iGEM now. And a number
of them developed products, concepts, projects that are related
to agriculture, the environment. They're very sensitive to
detection and remediation.
And so what do you have--what you have in common there is a
need to understand questions and to be able to inform ways of
thinking about questions that are often not just, say, one gene
at a time anymore or even one question at a time. If you start
thinking about the interaction of these microbials, these would
be multiple microbes interacting with a plant that might be
interacting with an insect. So everything about it is
interaction-based, and so scientific skills that can help
students begin to comprehend interactions.
But those interactions also have an important metaphor,
which is interaction with the community at large. Just because
we can do something, people need to ask the question should we
or how should we. And those interactions of science with their
technology at the bench, being able to go have a conversation
with someone who is in another department in the school with no
science background at all, those skills are very unique and
quite lacking. And so we need to be able to integrate a good
sense of science, of--across a number of disciplines, but the
ability to think and ask questions, at least understand or
comprehend questions, that there could be policy or health or
ILSI implications is important.
Mr. Tonko. Right. Dr. Maxon, I think you had a comment you
wanted to share?
Dr. Maxon. Yes. Yes, thank you. Sorry. I have a bit of a
cold and I'm making sure I can get through this.
A couple of thoughts come to mind. In the United States
approximately 50,000 people per year receive doctorates. More
than half of those people--it depends on the field, of course--
but more than half of those people don't end up in 10-year-
track academic positions. You're looking at a table here with a
bunch of people who got academic training through the
apprenticeship model that gives us our Ph.D.'s.
But what we are not trained to do is understand the skill
sets, I think--to underscore the points made by my colleagues--
to work in industry, to manage a budget, to understand how to
write a business plan. These are not things we learned in the
system.
And so on the level of graduate education I would say that
the United States should work a little harder to broaden the
exposure of graduate students to the kinds of skills they're
going to need, depending on what field they're going to end up
in, whether it's going to be science journalism or academic
research or a medical research or plant research, at a company.
It doesn't matter. I think we can do a better job at that.
At the undergraduate level, a couple of thoughts occurred
to me there, too. 1) Most importantly, I think we see the best
outcomes in developing scientists and engineers when we give
them immersion opportunities, not just canned lab experiments
to do that thousands of students before us have done, but
actual research experiences where we are the first people to
ever actually do an experiment in an undergrad environment. I
know that's hard to do and I know it's expensive, but there are
people who are doing it and I think it's very good trend in the
right direction.
And lastly, community colleges, I know some of the national
labs, ours included, are working very hard to establish
relationships with community colleges to put into the curricula
critical inspirational pieces for understanding how to engineer
biology. So I think there's a lot of work we could do.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much. I think you've all cited a
need for investment, and I endorse that.
Madam Chair, I don't know if Dr. Shetty had any comment. It
looked like you wanted to share some thoughts.
Chairwoman Comstock. Sure. You're welcome to----
Ms. Shetty. Yes, the one comment I want to add to my fellow
panelists is that STEM education starts--needs to start early.
It's not--doesn't begin at the undergraduate level. I myself
had the benefit of doing a research experience at my local
university as a high school student. And those early exposures
to STEM education is critically important to fostering the
scientists today, particularly when you're talking about young
women, right? There are a lot of--the balance of genders
between men and women in science and math fields is very skewed
in a certain direction, and so we're not tapping into the full
potential workforce with those statistics.
And so as I look forward encouraging young girls to
participate in STEM fields is absolutely important. And as a
mom with a young daughter, you know, I want that for her.
Mr. Tonko. Super. Madam Chair, thank you, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I'm glad we got to have
you mention that opportunity. I started a Young Women's
Leadership Program so we could do that very thing, and my
daughter is a biology major, did not get any of that from me
so--but she had a lot of great women teachers at George Mason
here in her master's program.
I'll now recognize Mr. LaHood for five minutes.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the
witnesses for being here and for your testimony and all the
work that you do.
Dr. Shetty, question for you. There's been discussion about
how the United States is losing our competitive edge with China
and the United Kingdom when it comes to synthetic biology, and
I guess trying to understand the reasons for that and why we're
falling behind and what steps we need to take to maintain our
competitive advantage in biotechnology.
Ms. Shetty. Yes, thank you for the question. So I think
probably the best example of interest in--the worldwide
interest in this area is the International Genetically
Engineered Machines competition. This is an undergraduate
competition in synthetic biology where teams from universities
design and build genetically engineered machines, organisms.
And for the past few years most years the winner is not from
the United States, right? It's coming from Europe, coming from
China, coming from overseas. So I think this is a reflection of
what is to come if we don't make domestic investments in this
area.
And so I think part of the problem or part of what needs to
happen in this country is that we need an organized program of
investments, right? No one piece is enough because there's a
lot of synergy to be had between having the agencies understand
and coordinate their research efforts both on the basic R&D
side but also on the translation into industry through SBIR
programs, and then finally, as I alluded to in my opening
remarks, the U.S. Government serving as a customer for
biotechnology products as these nascent industries are getting
going.
And so we need a coordinated, multipronged strategy, and
that has--that coordinated strategy has been pushed forward by
the United Kingdom, by China, by other countries in the EU, but
so far, we have not done the same here in the United States.
Mr. LaHood. In the competition that you referenced, when
did that change occur where the United States hasn't been the
winner? Was that recently or 5--how long ago?
Ms. Shetty. The competition started in about 2004. I would
say by 2005, 2006 there started to be--the winners of the
competition started to become schools from outside the United
States rather than within the United States even though this
field largely has its original roots in the United States. I
was there. I was part of it.
Mr. LaHood. Got you. Dr. Maxon, as a follow-up, my home
State of Illinois has a large and diverse bioscience industry
with over 78,000 jobs and 3,400 businesses that contribute to
the State's economy as it relates to bioscience. I know you
were the author of the National Bioeconomy Blueprint in 2012
that outlined steps that federal agencies should take to drive
the bioeconomy in the United States. I know we referenced that
a little bit earlier, but what's the status of those
recommendations in that report?
Ms. Maxon. Thank you for that opportunity to talk about
what's happened since the release of that policy document.
I think the recent memo on July 2 from the White House
talking about taking a look at the regulatory framework--the
coordinated framework is a direct reflection of one of the five
strategic objectives of the National Bioeconomy Blueprint. So I
would say in that regard right at the top of the list is taking
a look at the coordinated framework.
Workforce development was another. You've heard some ideas
of how we might be able to jumpstart the system, get a few more
chemical processing engineers, that kind of thing, still need
some work to be done there.
Public-private partnerships for biosciences, I think what
could be done there--and there are some efforts underway right
now I believe, funded by the NSF, to identify precompetitive
research challenges that industry shares that might actually
benefit from government--public-private partnership with both
government and company investment.
So those are three right away. A couple more, strategic
research investments, that was the number one objective in the
National Bioeconomy Blueprint. I think you've heard most of the
people, if not all the people on the panel, say the same thing.
We could do a better job here. And one of the reasons, to
answer your last question, to address your last question about
why are we falling behind in synthetic biology specifically, I
look at this as another example of technology. Nanotechnology
is an example, emerging technologies. Technology in general
sort of falls between the cracks in the federal agencies, and
so I think the idea of a coordinated--federally coordinated
strategic approach to lift the technology is where I think some
opportunity still remains.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you. Madam Chair, if I could ask one last
question of Dr. Shetty?
Chairwoman Comstock. Okay.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you. Dr. Shetty, one of your company's
projects funded by DOE ARPA program supports R&D to capture
natural gas flared by shale. Can you describe how your company
is using that biotechnology to conduct this work, and what have
those outcomes been thus far?
Dr. Shetty. Thank you for the question. So there's an
interesting transition that's happened in recent years in this
country, which is that on a per-carbon basis, carbon derived
from methane, natural gas, methanol is cheaper than carbon
derived from other sources, say, sugar. And so there's a
growing interest in--both within our company and others in
using these as feedstocks for bio-production of various
chemicals and fuels.
And so we had initially had DOE ARPA-E funding in this area
to develop some nascent technologies, and we've since partnered
that work with a commercial partner and are taking it forward.
Now, unfortunately, because it's partnered, I'm under some
confidentiality restrictions and so I'm not able to speak to
the details of that program, but suffice it to say, this is an
area of interest both for ourselves and others, and it's a
potential new frontier when it comes to bio-production of these
types of fuels.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr.
Hultgren.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all so much
for being here for this important discussion. I do believe this
is an important hearing.
And as technology continues to evolve and new opportunities
materialize, it's increasingly necessary that we keep our
regulatory structure up-to-date while developing biotechnology
in the most ethical way possible. This means coordination and
communication between our researchers, their institutions, our
government, and also among government agencies.
Dr. Maxon, I wonder if I could address my first couple
questions to you. You mentioned the Human Genome Project in
your testimony, which for me has been an excellent example of
the unique capabilities of the Department of Energy to bring to
the table in computing, among other things. DOE basically had
to start the project to prove the concept before NIH was able
to take this up as a serious cost-effective endeavor. How has
the Human Genome Project benefited the nonhuman health biotech
sectors? And also, is there a similar systematic sequencing
project needed for agriculture or naturally occurring chemicals
as well?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for your question. I apologize. I have
a bit of a cold today. To your first question, Human Genome
Project, how has it benefited the non-biotechnology. I assume
you mean the non-biomedical world?
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, I'm sorry.
Dr. Maxon. No, thank you for clarification. I think one
thing that that human genome sequencing project did was
democratized DNA sequencing. So laboratories everywhere,
whether you're studying viruses or the plant microbiome,
whatever it is, people can now sequence DNA very quickly as a
consequence of the human genome sequencing project.
So I think that--and in fact, I don't think it's
overestimating it to say all of biology has benefited in that
way. Anything that has DNA, if you can sequence DNA quickly and
cheaply and in a democratic fashion, everything has benefited.
So I think the magnitude of that can't be underscored. If you
could remind me of your second question?
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, the second question was, you know, as
far as agriculture or other naturally occurring chemicals is
there a similar systematic sequencing project that we need or
where we should focus?
Ms. Maxon. A similar systematic sequencing project, wow. I
am not in a great position to answer that question. I think I
would defer that to my agricultural colleagues.
Mr. Hultgren. Does anybody else have a--yes.
Mr. Dickman. There is actually quite a bit being done in
agricultural sequencing if you will. In fact, NSF has a plant
genome program that is actually very well-funded, nice to hear,
and has been ongoing for a number of years. There's also
microbial genome sequencing program that just finished.
So--and also independently, now that it has gotten so
relatively inexpensive and available and doable in a rapid
fashion, there's a lot--there's a great many agricultural-
related genome sequencing projects going on now.
Another area to be marketable in is bioinformatics and
computation because back when I was a student, you know, we
cloned the gene was your thesis. Now, you go home, it's 25,000
genes and you have to figure out what to deal with it. So
there's a massive amount of data handling, but that is being
done to the United States' credit in support of those kinds of
projects.
Mr. Hultgren. That's great. Thank you. I'm going to go back
to Dr. Maxon if that's all right. From your time at OSTP and
now with the lab, surely you've seen the difficulties of
getting agencies to work together, especially in getting them
to leverage one another's resources, tools, and human
expertise. It sounds to me like there is great potential if
agencies would work more closely together in this space, for
instance, if ag aggressively leveraged the synthetic biology
and genomic capabilities of the national labs. I wonder, will
this work and what do you suggest? How do we--from your
experience, how do we best work together?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for that question. I'm tremendously
optimistic about this. I do think there's an incredible
opportunity here. The potential is amazing. I was heartened to
see the President's Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology in December of 2012, or at least a report called
``Agricultural Preparedness.'' And in that report they
recommended that the USDA work with the DOE and the NSF to set
up new innovation ecosystem hubs for agriculture. I think an
idea like that where the DOE, that knows how to set up
innovation hubs, working with the USDA, could go a long way
with NSF in making something like this happen.
I was also heartened to see not long after that report that
the USDA, in its budget, requested funds for a biomanufacturing
institute. So I think we're very close and I'm very optimistic.
So I think it will work. It just might take a little bit more
time.
Mr. Hultgren. Great. My time is almost expired. I will
yield back my last 7 seconds. Thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. And I now recognize Mr. Weber for five
minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let the record show
I have five minutes and second seconds.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here and participate.
And, Dr. Dickman, this question is for you. The past--this
past year public researchers involved in communicating the
science of biotechnology and its impacts have been--actually
been targeted both professionally and personally. I'm sure
you're aware that. Doctor, as a public scientist, can you give
me more background kind of into the current academic feeling on
this public outreach? You all are getting targeted a lot of--
some stuff has been aimed at you. What's the feeling amongst
your peers?
Dr. Dickman. Well, a number of things, disappointment and
things of that nature when you see a greenhouse that's been
destroyed by stones, for example, with all kinds of messages
written on them. It's a bit disconcerting. But in terms of
people's research, I don't think that has impacted it. I mean
people are still doing what they plan to do and continue to do
and get funded to do. So it's an unfortunate circumstance. I
really don't think it's really had a strong impact on people's
ability to do work with the exception that there is some
material things that have been destroyed that needed to be
replaced. It's been--is actually not too bad now.
Mr. Weber. Not too bad? You actually said I believe in your
discussion with the Chairwoman that you felt like you all
needed to do a better job of showing capabilities, I guess
educating the public?
Dr. Dickman. Very much so.
Mr. Weber. Has that been progressing?
Dr. Dickman. Well, I do it by--on sort of a grassroots
level. We don't have any organized framework with which to do
this. I think we do. We do need that, whether it be from
academic or--and/or companies----
Mr. Weber. Have you done the genomic sequencing on that
grass? You said grassroots level.
Dr. Dickman. That's actually in the queue for other
reasons.
Mr. Weber. All right. So you're doing it at the basic level
is what you're saying.
Dr. Dickman. Well, there's a number of turf breeders who
work strictly on golf course turf you might want to talk to.
Mr. Weber. There is a shock, huh? Well, we'll thank you for
that.
And, Dr. Evans, as you know, Dow Chemical has a lot of
industry in my district there in Texas. In fact, I was going to
tell the gentleman from Illinois--he left before I could--that
there was 78,000 jobs associated with this. In Texas, there's
81,000 jobs. Things are bigger in Texas.
So--but, Dr. Evans, you also mentioned in the three C's of
national needs both continuing to support national scientific
funding agencies and convening forms of discussion for the
public engagement or outreach that Dr. Dickman and I were just
discussing. With limited resources in public research, what
role do companies, for example, like Dow Chemical play in
promoting that scientific interest?
Dr. Evans. Well, I think one of the ways that we have been
involved last year with the help of the NSF, the Woodrow Wilson
Institute, there was a convening of companies, regulatory
bodies, and nongovernmental entities that had interest in the
environmental release of microorganisms, whether they be algal
strains that might do chemical production or concepts that
synthetic biology might want to bring into the environment.
That group at least published recommendations where things
could go, with some of those recommendations being specific
federal funding.
Now, companies I do think need to be able to know where to
direct their research, and their research needs to be aimed at
their product technology space and legitimate questions around
that product area. But there are some things that just are big
enough in scope or they are fundamental questions of biology or
biotechnology that are more properly addressed in integrative
lab studies from multi-university settings or they might be
appropriate to be something that would be the outcome of a
national lab and a focused program. And--but industry could
then, even in that scenario, be an appropriate partner. The--I
think the thing from the public perspective is we need to make
sure that the public can see transparently where those
contributions are being made and----
Mr. Weber. That's a good point, you know, in your
discussion with the gentleman from New York, Representative
Tonko, I think you said, just because we can do something, you
should ask the question should we do something. And if the
public perceives that a company is getting involved, is that a
conflict of interest? I think you were the one who said--let me
quote you. Earlier, you said that we needed more feed, fuel,
fiber, and food, more--and by 2050 than in the last 10,000
years. That's an astounding fact. And with limited resources
available I think if the public knew, you know, what was at
stake here, that they might not be so suspicious. But I
appreciate your testimony and, Madam Chair, your indulgence.
And I yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I think by agreement
Mr. Westerman has a few more questions, and I'm going to let
him have the chair because I'm going to have to depart. But I
want to thank the witnesses very much for a very interesting
and insightful hearing and appreciate all the great research
you're doing. And I'm glad we have two women here, too. So
thank you. And we certainly appreciate the men, but thank you
for your comments, Dr. Shetty, and we will keep those in mind
going forward, too. Thank you.
Mr. Westerman. [Presiding] I guess that's one way to get to
ask another question.
So, Dr. Maxon, you mentioned this briefly in some remarks,
but talking about nanoscience, and I was able to tour the
Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering Technology at my alma
mater, the University of Arkansas. It was very exciting to me,
the possibilities there. So I was wondering if the panel could
address the opportunities in nanoscience as it relates to
biotechnology. And is this an area that needs more research
funding?
Dr. Maxon. I'm not an expert in nanotechnology but I'll
kick this off and then allow my colleagues to respond.
I know that nanotechnology intersects with biotechnology in
some of the high-level treatments that are being done now to
target certain therapeutics at certain parts of the--very
specific parts of the body. I know that nanotechnology is used
in the process of doing some diagnostic kinds of analyses,
again, in the biomedical space. I don't--like I said, I'm not
an expert. I don't know much about how nanotechnology
intersects with the non-biomedical fields. It'd be interesting
to hear from my colleagues whether there are any.
Dr. Evans. There was in fact a small NSF industry and
university consortium that was established at the University of
Illinois to try to bring together--it was established at a
former nanotechnology center. Well, it still is a
nanotechnology center, but they brought in industry that was
involved in agriculture, some other industry that was involved
in food and diagnostics and medicine to try to come in and
bring products to market rapidly that could be based on
nanotechnology.
I think if you just step way back--I'm not a physicist, but
the thing that nanotechnology did to material sciences has
helped re-envision what was possible. We thought we knew what
was possible with our understanding of the physics and of the
performance of materials at a certain scale, but nanotechnology
changed that, and remarkable products and concepts came out of
that.
I think engineering biology is doing the same thing to
biology. We had a framework of what was possible that was
rocked with the development of recombinant DNA technology in
the early '80s. Insulin came very quickly after that, a Nobel
Prize. Now, we have high school students that could do the same
level of engineering that formed early products. And so this is
reengineering what is--or reimagining what is even possible
using biology for what it's very good at, making things, making
nano-structured things. Biology makes wonderfully complicated
nano-structured materials in things besides carbon. And so how
does it do that? And how could technology be brought to bear to
do that?
And so I think it's questions like that that a good, well-
thought-out national plan for bringing students and bringing
the technology to bear could follow on that metaphor of
nanotechnology. And I had to bring in associated concepts of
regulatory and safety all at the same time.
Mr. Westerman. Dr. Maxon?
Dr. Maxon. To follow on the point that Dr. Evans just made,
the National Nanotechnology Initiative is a great example of a
coordinated effort that gave rise to coordinated federal
research, coordinated interest in public science, the public
understanding of the science. I think that that model exists
that could be applied here.
Mr. Westerman. Anybody else like to address the nanoscience
question?
Dr. Serber. Only very briefly that biology is already the
supreme source of nano-exquisite molecular structures. Biology
and the enzymes that it employs to do chemistries are there for
us to make use of as we attempt to expand the chemical palette
of building blocks that we can use to make new materials. So
there is a definite overlap in some of the applications.
Mr. Westerman. And, Dr. Serber, just as a quick last
question, your work in biofuels, can you describe some of the
barriers that exist for bringing biofuels to market? I know
there's been a lot of attempts, not really any successful
attempts.
Dr. Serber. Yes, quickly, so I'm currently no longer
working on biofuels, but I did spend about seven years pursuing
biofuels. And the challenges that that sector faces are driven
by the macroeconomic forces having to do with the price of oil
in the price of feedstocks for the fermentation products.
It's worth highlighting that in the course of pursuing
biofuels, both with private and federal funding, all the tools
that we are--this panel is making use of to drive other
applications and other technology, a lot of that began with
biofuels. The biofuels have not yet reached the economic
tipping point to be competitive, but things only need to change
a little bit for that to turn around. And we'll be ready when
they do.
Mr. Westerman. Okay. I'd like to thank the witnesses for
their valuable testimony and the Members for their questions.
The record will remain open for two weeks for additional
comments and written questions from Members. The witnesses are
excused and this meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Additional Material for the Record
Prepared statement of Committee Ranking Member
Eddie Bernice Johsnon
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman for holding this hearing. I want to
thank you and the Ranking Member for putting together such a
distinguished panel of witnesses who represent the national
laboratories, large companies, start-up companies, and academia.
This morning, we are talking about emerging biotechnologies and
their applications for the energy, agricultural, and manufacturing
sectors.
A number of these new technologies are based on engineering biology
research that allows researchers to safely re-engineer existing
biological systems and to learn from and mimic existing biological
systems to perform novel tasks and develop novel materials and
products.
These new technologies are exciting and have the potential to solve
some of society's greatest challenges, including providing food for a
growing population, reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, and
dramatically transforming manufacturing. Additionally, they have
numerous applications for the biomedical sector, some of which we heard
about at a hearing this past summer.
Given the promise of this research and its applications, I
introduced the Engineering Biology Research and Development Act of
2015, with my Science Committee colleague, Mr. Sensenbrenner.
The bill would establish a framework for greater coordination of
federal investments in engineering biology and lead to a national
strategy for these investments. The bill would also focus on expanding
public-private partnerships and on education and training for the next
generation of engineering biology researchers.
Additionally, the bill will ensure that we address any potential
ethical, legal, environmental, and societal issues associated with
engineering biology. It will also ensure that public engagement and
outreach are an integral part of this research initiative.
The goal of this legislation is to ensure that the United States
remains preeminent in this critical area of science and technology. As
I anticipate hearing this morning from our witnesses, if we do not make
the necessary investments, we will lose our leadership position in
engineering biology.
We are already seeing other countries make significant progress.
The EU and others are investing, working on coordinated strategies
across their research enterprises, and developing action plans to
execute those strategies. Right now, we are still a leader in
engineering biology, but we must continue our work to ensure that we do
not cede this leadership position.
This field has the potential to grow our economy, create jobs, and
improve our quality of life. Even though we are in an increasingly
interconnected world, it is important to do all we can to promote
innovation and job creation here at home.
I am hopeful that we can work together across the aisle to ensure
that the United States remains a leader in engineering biology.
In closing, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and
I yield back the balance of my time.