NSF Convergence Accelerator: Workshop for the Development of Infrastructure for Distributed Bio-Manufacturing and Bio-Readiness

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

Our ability to rapidly manufacture bio-based solutions like therapeutics, materials, and bio-energy is crucial to our national economic advantage and national security. An agile national infrastructure to distribute the manufacturing of biological materials as well as provide the nation with a level of “bio-readiness” to address global pandemics and bio-threats is crucial in the 21st century. This research area will produce a distributed network of facilities, equipment, software, protocols, techniques, and personnel to develop applications and technology as well as to respond to bio-threats such as global warming and international pandemics. Sharing resources, software, training, personnel, and expertise will allow new centers to be created quickly in the face of national threats or economic needs. This effort will be inherently interdisciplinary and require computer scientists, material scientists, molecular biologists, government officials, legal expertise, and business leaders. It will include academic, government, and commercial partners at all scales. It will be a truly unique effort. This proposal is to organize a six-session virtual workshop series to develop a coherent set of Needs, Opportunities, and Challenges for Bio-Manufacturing and Bio-Readiness. This workshop series will result in a set of interdisciplinary reports that will be communicated to the National Science Foundation for consideration as a “Convergence Accelerator” Future Topic. The ideas generated during this workshop series will impact commercial as well as academic developments and research in bio-manufacturing, bio-security, and bio-readiness. Workforce development will require new training and create new personnel positions as a response. Models of collaboration between academic research and commercial business will be altered along with the legal and government agencies required to make these connections happen. If successful, this effort will change how the United States views its national manufacturing abilities as well as how it responds to potential global threats in the future. As a result, a well-defined, accessible, and continuously evolving set of tools, techniques, software, hardware, and personnel will be available to the United States and, as appropriate, globally. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.