BENGALURU: Enthused by the thrust expected from the Centre's new BioE3 Policy for biomanufacturing in India, Biocon Founder and Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw termed it a step in the right direction. She noted that biomanufacturing will provide answers to pressing questions plaguing the human mind today.
"I am very excited about the BioE3 policy because biomanufacturing will provide answers to many questions that we face today, in the realms of energy, food, and bio-materials," Kiran, chairperson of the Vision Group on Biotechnology, Government of Karnataka, said at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024.
"Today, between synthetic biology and cell-based fermentations to microbial or mammalian cells, we are able to look at disease, nutrition and sustainability in a very different way, and the BioE3 Policy is focused on the environment, economy, and employment," Kiran added.
The BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) Policy is India's first biotechnology policy that was approved by the Union Cabinet on August 24, this year. It promotes sustainable biomanufacturing and green growth in India.
Separately, biomanufacturing refers to the process of using living organisms, including living cells, microbes, or genetically-engineered systems, to produce vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, proteins for medicinal use, amino acids, industrial enzymes, biofuels, and biochemicals, while serving a range of sectors, including healthcare, agriculture, energy, and conservation.
Elaborating, Kiran mentioned that biology has a lot to offer to the world, especially new biology -- a more collaborative approach to the science -- combining life science research with other disciplines, to address societal challenges. She also stressed the need to derive tech-driven approaches to biology.
"I'm really excited about new biology, which is tech-driven. We could never do anything that we can today with biology, if not for the computational power we possess -- to understand, sort, segregate and infer from what we see and analyse," Kiran said.
"For instance, the human body is the most complex data link. How is it that we, through quantum biology, in nanoseconds look at all the data, sort, segregate, analyse, and annotate it, and respond. This is the marvel of biological systems. If you start understanding how biology works, you will solve many of the world's problems," she added.
Biology can also provide insights to the energy sector, which grapples with self-sufficiency and storage issues.
"We talk about biofuels, that's basically biotechnology, which means we've learned how to convert starch to energy, ethanol to energy... Now, solar power is one of the biggest renewable energy sources, in combination with wind energy. But the biggest challenge is storage," Kiran said.
"Plants have been storing solar energy through photosynthesis from the beginning. How do you learn from photosynthesis, and solar energy storage from plants, and convert it into a big biotechnology?" Kiran reflected.
Highlighting the opportunity for the state, she advised, "Karnataka must focus on using tech-driven approaches to biology, and biomanufacturing is where the future is. What is interesting about Karnataka and Bengaluru is the prevalence of startups. I think we need to bring them all together. Convergence of technology, and learn from biology."