A Glimpse into the Future of Biotech

In biotech, past performance rarely predicts future results. Who could have foresing that CRISPR gene editing will take the world by surprise in 2012 or mRNA vaccines saving humanity? Biotechnology has the potential to modify almost every aspect of human life, from our crops to how we evolve as a specie. Biotechnology can generate huge amounts of wealth or increase inequity in the world. During the next 20 years, it will have to redefine itself and focus on collective efforts to address the needs of patients, consumers, and the planet.

Nobody has the crystal ball to foresee the future, maybe Amy Webb does ?? , but for the average persona, we can use scenario planning as a great tool to design our strategy based on trends and by asking simple questions, How the world would be in let`s say, 50 years from now?

What Is Scenario Planning?

For businesses, scenario planning enables decision-makers to identify ranges of potential outcomes and estimated impacts, evaluate responses and manage for both positive and negative possibilities. From?projecting financial earnings?and estimating cash flow to developing mitigating actions, scenario planning is more than just a financial planning tool — it’s an integrated approach to dealing with uncertainty.

But it’s more than just a way to recognize and mitigate risk or plan for growth situations. Scenario planning is also about visualizing different representations of an organization’s future, based on assumptions about the forces driving the market — some good, some bad. During this assessment, we can foresee possible futures and try to design the most probable ones.

Scenario planning is a process?pioneered by the U.S. military,?which today runs exercises looking up to 20 years out to guide R&D efforts.

You can find more information here: https://www.netsuite.com/portal/business-benchmark-brainyard/industries/articles/cfo-central/scenario-planning.shtml#:~:text=In%20the%20context%20of%20a,how%20your%20organization%20will%20respond

It is complex to see or understand what the future may hold for us but, after looking at trends and visualizing the huge potential of Biotech I came up with a couple of ideas that we can discuss further on how we as a society will use Biotech to our favor or not.

Next 20 years in Biotech: A glimpse into the future

Biotech is likely to transform a broader range of human experiences through what is called Bioconvergence, which combined with cognitive science, nanotechnology, physics, and others, are propelling new leaps in our understanding and accelerating discovery and predictability in biotech design and production.

Although market, regulatory, and normative conditions will moderate the pace and focus of progress. Biotechnology probably will improve many aspects of human existence; however, the pursuit and possible application of these technologies may also create social and economic disruptions and raise numerous ethical questions.

Factors driving Biotech.

Increased Investment and Decreasing Cost These economic factors together will be pivotal to future biotech breakthroughs and applications. In 2019, the global bioeconomy, defined as all activity enabled by research and innovation in the life sciences and biotechnology, accounted for about $5 trillion, or nearly 6% of global GDP. Based on 10-15 percent annual revenue growth trends, the world bioeconomy could exceed $20 trillion by 2030. A drop in the cost of key enabling technologies could spur the application of biotech to a wider set of challenges and potentially democratize aspects of biotech R&D and production, increasing its global accessibility, as one example Ultima Genomics has claimed that they can perform a DNA sequencing for only USD 100.

Large-Scale Research Collaboration

Whether endorsed by the international community or arising from commercial or grassroots initiatives, largescale collaboration could significantly accelerate biotech R&D, we've seen this collaboration to solve the COVID pandemic in which in less than 2 months the virus was aisled and sequenced, and in less than a year, we developed several vaccines. Looking at the bigger picture and how communities are developing in the digital space, it'd be easier for scientists to further develop new technologies and validate them rapidly.

Biotech applications and implications.

3D Organ Bioprinting of Organs and Individualized Treatments

During the next 20 years, the range of conditions and treatments these techniques will be able to address is likely to grow, including the printing of tissues with companies like Organovo or Aspect Biosystems, which are the 2 of the most advanced startups disrupting the industry and the creation of genetically tailored animals to produce human organs compatible for transplantation as we can already witness from Weizmann Institute of Science during this week. Although these treatments are going to be expensive, they might be less costly than decades of treatment for chronic diseases, such as diabetes. These technologies may not be fully available in the next 20 years but, they will be close to market, nevertheless, we need to take into consideration the inclusion to make equal access to these advanced technologies

Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI)

The fusion of machine and human capability occurs in various forms and at different levels of integration. Noninvasive has been shown to marginally enhance perception, memory, and attention, while invasive neural interfaces that directly connect brain or nervous tissue to computers are commonly used to correct neurological conditions like paralysis, but all the current forms of brain-computer interaction occur at very low data-transfer rates. Human-machine networks currently in development may be able to overcome these limitations, radically increasing the rate of data transfer, and expanding the range and depth of human perception and cognitive capabilities. Although the purpose of BMI was to help paralyzed patients live better lives, we are seeing more nonmedical uses which can give rise to “enhanced humans”. These humans will surely have a competitive advantage compared to “non-enhanced humans” and thus widen the gap between people that can afford these improvements or not. This may sound like a science fiction movie but, we are currently seeing people biohacking their own bodies. They form one branch of?transhumanism, a movement that holds that human beings can and should use technology to augment and evolve our species. I strongly suggest that you read The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil

More information here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/25/18682583/biohacking-transhumanism-human-augmentation-genetic-engineering-crispr

DNA-Based Data Storage

The use of DNA to encode and store data is already technically feasible and is being demonstrated in laboratories but we need to solve the synthesis costs, recording latency and retrieval of information. In the next 20 years DNA will be used, due to its stability and orders-of-magnitude greater storage capacity than most current technologies (DNA can store 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) in a single gram of DNA) as the preferred medium for long-lasting data storage. Using this technology could help us not only solve the storage issues we are seeing now but also build the biggest collection of information for future generations. applications that place a premium on data volume and longevity, and, low power.

Synthetic Organisms

The creation of an organism based on an expanded genetic code and amino acid repertoire could be common in research and maybe in real-life settings within the next 20 years. The ability to do this will be a key milestone in the human understanding of most biological pathways and an inflection point in the pace of biotech discovery and application. The creation of synthetic organisms is likely to catalyze greater investment in biotech and amplify debates about the direction, goals, and ethics of bioscience. The creation of living beings with features maybe we have ever seen, even if designed solely for beneficial purposes, is likely to spark concerns about how far a human can “play” to be god and debates about benefits and potentially dangerous uses.

Social impact

Biotech offers the possibility of improving and making more sustainable human health, the environment, agriculture, and modes of production. Conversely, biotech and the growth of the bioeconomy may also create disruptions and compound existing challenges, including expanding inequality, aggravating international competition, and intensifying ethical debates about what it means to be human.

Access to products and services

Biotech advancements, particularly expensive, tailored technologies, are likely to be unevenly distributed within and between countries. Although some of the emerging development models prioritize widespread collective benefit, biotech will remain an R&D-intensive, profit-driven, and large commercial undertaking. Consequently, the leading edge of what it can offer probably will remain out of reach, at least initially, for many people, even as many biotech products become commoditized and commonplace.

Let′s look at one example to illustrate the huge gap that Biotech can bring if we don′t take action:

CRISPR can be used to change any chosen letter or set of letters in the DNA of an organism that can potentially cure any genetic disease. Nevertheless, what if we look at the non-genetic disease approach and more like enhancement?

There’s moderate evidence that certain human traits such as intelligence and strength can be attributed, at least in part, to genetics (from Genome-wide associated studies). Myostatin expression limits the size and number of muscle cells.?Deletion or modification?of this gene causes increased muscularity. So, It’s not crazy to think that in the next 20 years we can find people using CRISPR or similar technologies to remove the myostatin gene from humans to deliberately cause muscle growth.

Now imagine that a CRISPR solution is created to edit the DNA of an embryo so that, when the person grows up, that person is guaranteed to be above-average intelligent and hyper-muscular. Due to the cost of this new “therapy”, only the rich people will have access to it and people in third-world countries will simply not be able to afford it. This surely causes the gap between people in first-world countries and third-world countries to widen, as well as increases the gap between those in poverty and the top high-income people in the United States.

Final thoughts

As the ability to alter human traits and capabilities both before and after birth increases, we probably will see the debate, or even conflict, about the limits and implications of manipulating human biology. Biotech may offer greater control and predictability of human form and behavior, allowing for specialization to impart compatibility with machine interfaces, for personal reproductive or performance advantage, or to effect scaled social change. The promise of improved health and longevity is likely to increase support for its implementation, while at the same time raising concerns about how societies should prepare to manage a much healthier, longer-living population. Biotech alteration of humans also holds the potential to create medical dependence, nonmedical advantage, or inequality between those who are and are not, altered. As we have seen in the past, what is new will have both advocates and opposition. The ones that reject the new technologies will be tagged as rebels and maybe separated, to some extent, from society. Even if human engineering is not widely permitted or practiced, it could join other risky medical tourism practices, such as stem cell treatments offered in countries without clinical protections or enforced regulations.

During the next 20 years, biotech could become a pivotal factor to propel the future of humanity, helping us understand what makes us human, and improving our lives but at the same time could separate us if measures are not taken early.

If you want to learn more about the importance of investment in biotech: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/importance-biotech-investment-2-world-history-adrian-rubstein/?trackingId=Y2iaZPf3RhOLoZpmz9JkDw%3D%3D

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