A Path Into the Bioeconomy

Everyone deserves to participate in science and benefit from advances in areas such as biotechnology. However, experimenting with biotechnology requires access to a space that provides safety, equipment, and training. Unfortunately, there is a geographic disparity in the United States in who can benefit from the emerging bioeconomy. But this can remedied by the proactive approach that Callie R. Chappell, Ana Paulina Quiroz, David Sun Kong, and Drew Endy lay out in “Creating a Popular Foundation for the Bio-Age” (Issues, Summer 2025).

Their vision takes on greater importance as biotechnology yields increasingly large economic and social impact worldwide. Many countries, seeing this, are ramping up their investments in biotechnology. To be competitive, the United States also should make a national investment and commitment to expanding its biotechnology infrastructure.

The oldest community biology labs, like BioCurious and Genspace, allow innovation to flourish and have produced dozens of successful start-up companies. Many labs work closely with existing universities, but they allow for a flexibility that is more difficult in academia. Having access to a lab outside traditional institutions allows for diversity in who can experiment and make discoveries. At BioCurious, we have seen a spectrum of people who want to explore and innovate. At one end are entrepreneurs behind traditional start-ups such as Engage Bio, a biotech firm working on mRNA cancer therapeutics developed by PhDs at our facility. At the other end are high school students like Elodie Rebesque, who researched binding proteins as a novel treatment for her brother’s disease, and Indeever Madireddy, who published the first genome sequence of angelfish. Having a safe, affordable space and ready mentoring made these discoveries possible.

As Chappell et al. suggest, many community labs informally help out with job training. I have found that many students with master’s and PhD degrees in STEM leave their programs with very specialized knowledge, but they lack the specific lab skills needed for the job market. At community labs, they can get training in industry-specific lab skills, interact with a network of experts, and gain experience to put on a resume. One unexpected demographic that has benefited from community labs is stay-at-home mothers with PhDs, who often feel left behind if they spend years out of the biotech field caring for their children. I have received many thanks from women in this position who did not see a clear path back into science, but participation in community labs gave them the experience and skills to re-enter the workforce. Their skills can only help strengthen a bioeconomic boom.

Building on community labs to create a stronger and expanded LABrary network can help the bioeconomy and bring the opportunities to those who want to explore science. Beyond fostering opportunities for innovation and participation in the bioeconomy, this effort will allow for participation in science as a bridge between institutions and the general public. Thoughtfully planned LABrary infrastructure of the type the authors explore would be even more impactful than the current independent ad hoc approach that characterizes existing biotechnology hubs.

Maria Chavez

Callie R. Chappell, Ana Paulina Quiroz, David Sun Kong, and Drew Endy describe how community biology labs could revolutionize how we present the tools of cutting-edge biological research to everyday Americans. Success would allow more people to participate in the advancement of biotechnology and expand our capabilities as a society, increase innovation, and foster economic growth. The authors draw parallels to how expansion of public libraries in nineteenth-century America, with philanthropic help, transformed the cultural and educational landscape.

The vision is both exciting and familiar to someone long involved in the community biology movement. In 2011, I heard Ellen Jorgensen, a cofounder of Genspace, one of the first community biology labs in the United States, lay out the potential of these labs as hubs for citizen science, biotechnology innovation, and public education. Since then, I have carried out several ventures trying to create a lasting community biology lab in the Midwest, which culminated in cofounding ChiTownBio in 2017 and opening our current location in early 2025. Echoing Jorgensen, the guiding principles for ChiTownBio are to promote and foster the biotechnology sector locally, increase scientific literacy within our community, and encourage citizen science and scientific exploration.

The general experience creating and running a community biolab is, however, not as rosy as Chappell et al. present. Within the scientific community, the value of fundamental research is apparent, but the institution of science is flailing in the public realm. Polling from the Pew Research Center showed a shocking nadir in public faith in science in 2023, which has barely budged. And the scientific community is at least partly to blame. The community’s insufficient handling of climate change and other looming problems, along with its inadequate pushback against the current administration’s policies regarding these issues, makes clear that we are not living up to our responsibilities to communicate not only our methods and findings, but the implications of our work to society.

Community biology has the promise to be a salve to many societal issues by, for example, providing increasing access to higher paying biotech jobs and filling gaps in public science education and communication. In particular, biolabs like ours, as Chappel et al. note, offer potential benefits, both economically and culturally, to our neighbors and communities.

But science today does not have the cultural currency that libraries had in the nineteenth century. It would be lovely to fill a niche resembling libraries in the nation’s development, but that would require the patronage of an unintrusive wealthy donor on the scale of the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and we would need help from the broader scientific community in communicating the need for science. This would require abandoning the restrictive and exclusive paradigm alive in institutional science, welcoming explorers in biotechnology, and actively participating in our quest. Community biology and its denizens are striving to expand access to and build equity in biotechnology, but more scientists will need to contribute to this mission if we are to prove our value to our societal peers.

Andrew Scarpelli

A nation’s investment in literacy pays multiple economic, social, and other benefits. Imagine what could come from a national commitment to bioliteracy in the booming bioeconomy emerging with the remarkable advances of biotechnologies. This is the possible future that Callie R. Chappell, Ana Paulina Quiroz, David Sun Kong, and Drew Endy offer in their essay.

What might seem an inspired but impossible vision at another time seems prescient given the realities of the second Trump administration. The dramatic reduction of federal research support, and the consequences that will certainly follow for US leadership in science, means we need to consider seriously a variety of alternative paths to scientific creativity, prominence, and progress.

The LABrary effort the authors describe is one such path. By operating at a local level, LABraries could address important community needs while building the bioliteracy students and community members need to understand the modern world. In turn, this distributed bioliteracy could offer students more pathways into the bioeconomy, draw more widely on talent and skills across the country, support local start-up businesses or nonprofits, and foster broader trust in science. For that alone, a cadre of public LABraries makes sense.

But they may be important for another reason too. As we bemoan the lack of community events and gatherings, the “bowling alone” phenomenon, or the “nomophobia” that arises when people fear being detached from mobile phone connectivity, we should be actively building more “third places” to gather. In a world where every pocket carries a library and computer, our local branch library may have limited appeal as a third place. But one that offers equipment and training that people want, need, and enjoy—a LABrary—could be a new node of community building.

There are daunting challenges to implementing such a proposal, from funding LABraries, to training LABrarians, to building safety and ethics protocols. But this is the time for a new moon shot—one that distributes rather than concentrates the efforts and benefits of a national commitment.

LABraries may be an idea whose time has come, but the vision will need our advocacy, some luck, and an inspired philanthropist.

Lisa M. Rasmussen