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The accelerating pace of biotech democratization

Nature Biotechnology volume 37, pages 1403–1408 (2019)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Understanding the speed at which new biotechnologies develop from activities requiring substantial educational and financial investments into those requiring far less resources is important for developing regulatory and security policies and practices. Moreover, such understanding provides insight into how these policies and practices influence the biotechnology economy; this insight is necessary to ensure that cutting-edge research is practiced responsibly. Here, we present an analytical approach to generate supportable estimates of the pace of advancement of biotechnologies. When extrapolated into the future, these estimates predict timeframes for the democratization of novel biotechnologies, that is, the speed at which biotechnologies can be expected to transition from being accessible to a few well-resourced specialists to many individuals with relatively low levels of technical skill and financial resources. Our assessment provides evidence that novel technologies currently can complete this transition in less than 4.5 years from their discovery and may do so in less than 3.5 years by the end of the next decade.

Historically, new life science techniques and devices have spread quickly throughout the molecular and cellular biology research fields, and the ensuing technological refinements, methods, reagents and equipment have become cheaper and more widely available1,2. Eventually, some biotechnologies reach a point at which specialized skills or substantial financial resources are no longer required, and the biotechnologies can be successfully used by individuals with relatively low levels of technical skill and financial resources. Some biotechnologies have such broad applications that their demand supports the development of service industries. Through the study of a variety of sources, we tracked the development of new biotechnologies with the aims of understanding the pace at which new life science innovations spread and of estimating how quickly they might spread in the future. Our data indicate that the time required for the democratization of biotechnologies has been decreasing. Although the future of advances in biotechnology cannot be predicted with certainty, our study indicates that the potential for the use of biotechnologies by non-experts is progressing at a rapid pace.

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Fig. 1: Time dependence of the progression of biotechnology development.

Data availability

Source data for Tables 1 and 2 and Fig. 1 are provided in Supplementary Tables 2–23.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. MacMillan for assistance in statistical analysis and N. Gunther for assistance in formatting. We also thank J. K. Middleton at Battelle Memorial Institute for project support. Work was supported by the US Department of Homeland Security prime contract FA8075-14-D-0003/DO 0010 to Battelle Memorial Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gryphon Scientific, LLC, Takoma Park, MD, USA

    Shawn S. Jackson, Louise E. Sumner, Christian H. Garnier, Casey Basham, Landy T. Sun, Peter L. Simone, Danielle S. Gardner & Rocco J. Casagrande

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  1. Shawn S. Jackson
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  2. Louise E. Sumner
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  3. Christian H. Garnier
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  4. Casey Basham
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  8. Rocco J. Casagrande
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Contributions

S.S.J., L.E.S. and R.J.C. designed the analysis. S.S.J. and L.E.S. directed the data-collection efforts of C.H.G., C.B., D.S.G., P.L.S. and L.T.S., and S.S.J. analyzed the data. S.S.J. and L.E.S. wrote the manuscript, and R.J.C. provided input.

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Correspondence to Shawn S. Jackson.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Data

Supplementary Tables 1–23

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Jackson, S.S., Sumner, L.E., Garnier, C.H. et al. The accelerating pace of biotech democratization. Nat Biotechnol 37, 1403–1408 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0339-0

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