Investment in biotech creates biodefense – produces vaccine development and provides an advanced warning of biothreats through data sharing

[Kavita, Associate Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "Emerging and Enabling Technologies in Biodefense", National Library of Medicine, 3/31/19, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7123622/, accessed 7/8/22, GDI-cc]

Biotechnologies provide critical capabilities in the defense against natural and man-made threats. In health, new scientific discoveries and platforms contribute to the development of vaccines and medicines against pathogens, such as influenza A virus or Bacillus anthracis. Researchers’ ability to understand the relationship between pathogens and their hosts provide the information needed to create targeted vaccines and medicines. Similarly, scientists have begun applying synthetic biology tools and concepts to vaccine development, hoping to reduce the time involved in creating a vaccine against an emerging infectious disease and enabling rapid response efforts. More recently, investments in additive bio-manufacturing have provided new opportunities to print human tissues and organs, which in some laboratories, are being used to study the effects of pharmaceutical candidates before testing in animals or people. In addition, advances in knowledge gained from neuroscience and behavioral sciences provides new opportunities to understand and identify clinical interventions to prevent or treat various psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder after return from military conflict.

Beyond health efforts, governments are looking to the life sciences and biotechnology to assist in early warning of infectious disease events, forensics, decontamination of materials, and many other uses. Efforts to gain advanced warning of infectious disease events have leveraged new data analysis technologies (e.g., natural language processing, image analysis, and text analysis) to evaluate a variety of information, including environmental, ecological, genomic, physiological, and other relevant data. Efforts to promote longevity of materials and equipment have leveraged advances in synthetic biology. Efforts to enhance microbial forensics and attribution have leveraged advances in microbiology and improved data handing and sharing procedures between public health and law enforcement communities. Enabling this research and data sharing was a commitment by the U.S. government and international organizations to seek solutions for capability gaps in preventing, detecting, and responding to natural and/or man-made infectious disease events of international concern.