The future is now. The Bioeconomy in 2023 is showing clear signs of opportunities for advantage created by the exponential disruption of the industrial base (including that of defense), coupled with exponential biotechnological innovation to build the bioeconomy of the future.
The State of the Bioeconomy in 2023 includes:
- Exponential Organizational Ecosystems at Speed and Scale
- Blockchain Technologies
- Artificial Intelligence in Biotechnology, Genomics, Healthcare and Medical Tech
- Biomanufacturing in Cislunar Space; and
- Health Security and Cybersecurity Challenges
Details of current breakthroughs and strategic directions for each category can be found below.
Exponential Speed and Scale
Exponential Innovation and Building the Bioeconomy of the Future: Last year, we launched the Opportunities for Advantage Series to explore how exponential disruption and innovation require organizations to focus efforts to gain advantage. In a recent review of the series, we found that there were patterns and groupings which deserved to be highlighted to jumpstart the series for this year. To start, we found that the future of biotechnology was a cluster in the series. The posts included here are a primer on the potential of such an effort – including the challenges, threats, risks, and opportunities ahead for your organization in this technology and business ecosystem of the future.
The New Tech Trinity: Artificial Intelligence, BioTech, Quantum Tech: Will make monumental shifts in the world. This new Tech Trinity will redefine our economy, both threaten and fortify our national security, and revolutionize our intelligence community. None of us are ready for this. This convergence requires a deepened commitment to foresight and preparation and planning on a level that is not occurring anywhere. The New Tech Trinity.
An OODAcast Conversation – Joe Tranquillo on the Revolution in Biological Science: Joe Tranquillo is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Bucknell University and a provost at the school. He is also and author and speaker with a knack for helping make new and at times complex subjects understandable. In this OODAcast we discuss many aspects of the revolution in biological sciences with Joe including topics like: New ways of delivering medicines that target specific tissues; Discovery of the structure of almost every human protein; Methods to synthesize biomolecules, which can result in ways to manufacture a wide range of materials like therapeutics, flavors, fabrics, food, fuels; and new ways of growing food that are more productive and take fewer pesticides and fertilizers.
The Revolution in Biology: This post provides an overview of key thrusts of the transformation underway in biology and offers seven topics business leaders should consider when updating business strategy to optimize opportunity because of these changes. For more see: The Executive’s Guide To The Revolution in Biology
Materials Science Revolution: Room-temperature ambient pressure superconductors represent a significant innovation. Sustainability gets a boost with reprocessable materials. Energy storage sees innovations in solid-state batteries and advanced supercapacitors. Smart textiles pave the way for health-monitoring and self-healing fabrics. 3D printing materials promise disruptions in various sectors. Perovskites offer versatile applications, from solar power to quantum computing. See: Materials Science
Blockchain Technologies
Innovative Blockchain Technology Case Studies (by Industry Sector) – Blockchain Technologies in The Bioeconomy, Biotechnology, and Healthcare: Over the course of 2022 and 2023, The OODA Loop Blockchain Series has explored blockchain disruption in the market and new opportunities created by blockchain technologies in both the public and private sectors. Innovative blockchain technology efforts (by industry sector) – with a focus on how the blockchain enables new business models, opportunities for innovative value proposition design, and decentralized governance – are listed here.
Artificial Intelligence in Biotechnology, Genomics, Healthcare and Medical Tech
“AI for Enterprise”: Lessons Learned from Healthcare, Hugging Face and Clinical Language Models: Healthcare is already in the midst of an AI revolution – with an applied technology market maturity which outpaces most other industry sectors which are in a reactive mode to the AI hype cycle. Explore these AI healthcare use cases and apply them to your organization using design and systems thinking.
AI-powered Genomics: The convergence of machine learning, deep learning and genomics, especially in the area of AI-powered genomic health prediction, while remarkably promising will also present remarkably challenging unintended consequences. A recent report suggests areas which need to be explored – : starting now – as “the issues posed by the…technologies become harder to predict, more complex and more numerous.”
AI-Based Ambient Intelligence Innovation in Healthcare and the Future of Public Safety: The following is a case study from another industry vertical which grapples with rescue and safety, life and death as real-time, mission-critical business issues. The trial by fire crisis conditions created by the current public health disaster has forced the healthcare industry into an acceleration of artificial intelligence innovation and implementation of applied technologies that will “make healthcare more efficient, more accessible, and more human in a post-pandemic world.” They call it “ambient clinical intelligence” and Dr. Greg Moore of Microsoft recently spoke to its potential while on a panel entitled “How AI is Transforming Patient-Focused Care in a Post-Pandemic World,” on Day 1 of the recent Boston Globe – Global Summit 2021.
Biomanufacturing in Cislunar Space
The Next Commercial Space Industry? DARPA Explores Biomanufacturing in Cislunar Space: When you hear about the commercialization of space, it is not only the efforts of Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, or Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide civilian space flights. If DARPA has anything to do with it, there will also be the “development and future realization of biomanufacturing capabilities in space.” The timeline for a private sector role in the commercialization of these biotechnology capabilities is unclear, but DARPA has begun to explore the possibilities the DARPA way.
The Varda Space Drug Factory (Currently Manufacturing Ritonavir in Low Earth Orbit): Varda Space Industries launched its first in-orbit manufacturing spacecraft on board SpaceX’s latest rideshare mission. This project is fully operational, but had to start as a rigorous speculative design process – more sci-fi than real world. Until it wasn’t. It is representative of the kind of project that will still feel like a faraway future, but is currently manufacturing a drug experiment in space.
Health Security and Cybersecurity Implications
Planning for a Continuous Pandemic Landscape: COVID-19’s geopolitical repercussions are evident, with recent assessments pointing to China’s role in its spread. Regardless of the exact origins, the same conditions that allowed COVID-19 to become a pandemic persist today. Therefore, businesses must be prepared for consistent health disruptions, implying that a substantial portion of the workforce might always operate remotely, even though face-to-face interactions remain vital for critical decisions. See: COVID Sensemaking
The Future of Biosafety and the Global Gain-of-Function Research Ecosystem: Researchers from the the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) recently mapped “the gain- and loss-of-function global research landscape.” We contextualize the CSET findings relative to the biosafety levels in U.S. biomedical laboratories. A looming question: do other countries have the adequate commitment to health security and biosafety measures in their high risk pathogen research?
The Strategic Implications of the Recent Data Scraping of Genetic Testing Market Leader 23andMe: The exponential growth of the bioeconomy is all at once an opportunity for strategic competitive advantage and wrought with the perils of unintended consequences wrought by broad data security and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. A scraping incident last week at Genetic Testing Company 23andMe (resulting in the leak of data in the form of a ‘for sale’ offering on a cybercriminal forum) sheds light on these emerging threat vectors.
The Medical Cybersecurity Bill and the Health and Location Data Protection Act: The issue of cybersecurity in the healthcare sector and, specifically, medical device vulnerabilities have always been included in our OODA Loop Daily Pulse. Archived coverage and early signals on the issues at hand and a summary two piece of legislation worth watching.
Additional OODA Loop Resources
For more OODA Loop News Briefs and Original Analysis, see OODA Loop: Biotechnology | Genetics | Genomics | Healthcare | Medical Tech
