Study Predicts BioTech's Long-Term Impact on Defense.

• Author: Dieuliis, Diane
• Position: COMMENTARY

The Biotechnology Community of Interest released a study on the future of biotechnology in April, titled "Bio-Futures 2050: Defense Impacts and Opportunities."

Produced at the direction of the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, it identifies a range of biotechnologies likely to be part of everyone's lives over the next 30 years.

These are technologies that will fundamentally change the economy and how the nation is defended. The study provides recommendations for the U.S. government on how to best harness these technologies to bolster national security and improve the lives of Americans.

While the full study isn't publically releasable, the overarching themes can be discussed.

The big picture findings show a convergence of biotechnology, automation and artificial intelligence that will transform all facets of life by the year 2050. It will also alter how the Defense Department executes its mission. The study team that produced the report projects that between 2025 and 2050 the ongoing biotechnology revolution will increasingly contribute to the nation's defense capabilities.

Synthetic biology, additive manufacturing, nanotechnology and advanced biotechnology will provide new materials, sensors and therapeutics--many of which will have military applications.

Biotechnology will also introduce new demands and vulnerabilities as it becomes accessible to more actors--including our competitors.

In parallel with biotechnology advances, the U.S. military will be adapting to a planet disrupted by climate change, converging technologies and financial crises. These disruptive factors will occur globally, but not evenly. Some regions and peoples will suffer far more than others. Collectively, these impacts will result in a more contested and fragmented world in which U.S. interests are increasingly challenged.

As near-peer nations enter the biological revolution, they will challenge U.S. dominance in the global bioeconomy. This will be a type of gray warfare--a sustained low intensity economic conflict where the interests of multi-national corporations are intertwined with regional politics and the strategic rivalries of global powers.

Finally, each nation engaged in the race to a biotechnology future will do so in its own way according to its culture, traditions and political culture.

One example is industrial chemicals. Synthetic biology and biomanufacturing will transform the way industry supplies the raw ingredients the U.S. defense sector, along with the broader economy, uses to make materials such as textiles, plastics, lubricants and other consumer goods. Over the next 35 years, bio-products will gradually displace petrochemical production as the dominant means of producing industrial chemical feed stocks.

As bioproduction becomes more cost-competitive, adoption will follow, supported by such government programs as the Department of Agriculture's BioPreferred Program, which helps consumers identify products with biobased...