Source: The New York Times
The Obama administration is expected to announce a broad plan on Thursday to foster development of the nation’s “bioeconomy,” including the use of renewable resources and biological manufacturing methods.
The National Bioeconomy Blueprint, as the plan is called, discusses a variety of measures and strategies to spur research and development of medical treatments, crops, biofuels and biological manufacturing processes that would replace harsher industrial methods.
Use of biology “can allow Americans to live longer, healthier lives, reduce our dependence on oil, address key environmental challenges, transform manufacturing processes, and increase the productivity and scope of the agricultural sector while growing new jobs and industries,” the report says.
Much of what is in the 43-page-report, which the administration released before its planned announcement on Thursday, is a list of government programs that are already under way. So it is not clear what concrete changes, if any, will result.
Still, some biotechnology industry executives and scientists welcomed the plan as a sign of the government’s commitment, saying it would now be easier to push for specific new programs to foster biotechnology development.
“This may be the first time the country has recognized the total impact that biological sciences has for the current and future economy,” Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, a Nobel laureate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the project, said in an e-mail.
Categories: Alternative energy, Americas, Biology, Environment, Science and Technology, United States