Last week began with a visit of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Dr Vince Cable, to open the Norwich Innovation Centre on the Norwich Research Park. Dr Cable was also shown round The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), where the full array of modern genome sequencing instrumentation was on show, together with some of the tools for analysing genomics data. The point was made that if automobiles had increased in speed at the rate that genome sequencing had over the last 10 years they would now be travelling at millions of miles per hour… [...]

My first public engagement of the week was an appearance – together with my colleague Marion Guillou, the president of INRA – to give evidence before the House of Lords Select Committee EU Sub-Committee D on Innovation in EU Agriculture. RCUK had already provided written evidence, as had some of our Institutes. The questions were sharp and exploratory, and allowed us to develop a considerable number of the relevant arguments. Since an audio record is available, and a video record and corrected transcript will become available via the same website before too long, I do not rehearse these arguments further. Last week’s publication of Global Food and Farming Futures also helped, and there was also an announcement that the Government will soon be publishing its thoughts on the commercial production of genetically modified (i.e. via recombinant technology) crops. [...]

As so often, last week’s activities seemed to cluster on a subset of activities. We had a very useful third meeting of the Industrial Biotechnology (IB) Leadership Forum (and see its latest Newsletter), with updates on a wide range of topics. These included the Centre for Process Innovation at Wilton, home of the National Industrial Biotechnology Facility (see also the BIS Manufacturing and Materials Newsletter), activities at the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology  meeting in Edinburgh (and see video) and others that week, Industrial Biotechnology as a core part of the Knowledge-Based BioEconomy (a term that had actually originated under the UK and German EU Presidencies around 2005/6), the development of necessary skills (led by David Brown of the IChemE), and a presentation by Iain Wilcock of Seventure on the (venture capital) funding of Industrial Biotechnology. I outlined where we were with our own developments, while Jonathon Porritt, representing Forum for the Future, led a discussion of the possible (perceived and real) risks of introducing new technologies such as IB, and how we should develop relevant public engagement activities. [...]