183. The American Biotech Blueprint: Senator Todd Young on Biodiversity as National Security

Sen. Todd Young a United States Marine could carry a, very transportable bag of what looks like almost Kool-Aid.

Sen. Todd Young it's a powdered blood, and then it has, a liquid agent that it can be combined with right there in the same packaging.

Erum Hey, Carl. How's it going?

Karl You know, things are great. We at the Grow Everything podcast were able to go to Suppliers Day, which is a huge event held by the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists. And, uh, they basically take over one floor of the Javits Center. You were there for two days. I came for one day, which was yesterday.

Karl And of course, the moment we walked in, we ran into some old friends and people who've been on the podcast. So the first person I ran into was Rocky Gratsios, who had been at Estee Lauder Companies and, uh, uh, and it was just great to catch up with him. You were there the day before. Who did [00:01:00] you run into?

Erum Yes. Um, I actually met a lot of new people. It's just so fascinating because at Suppliers Day, um, supplying all these ingredients and instrumentation to the personal care and beauty industry. And, you know, this whole category has been dominated by chemistry. Um, but now there's a lot of new innovations, which we'll talk about in a second, um, that are m- powered by biotechnology.

Erum So it was really cool to see some things. There's a company called Probiotical, which has amazing branding, I just have to say. Like, it's just like their color schemes and the way they present their science, super cool. And they're all about using, um, heat-treated strains that have, still have func- functionality when you apply it to skin or I think even also for, um, like nutraceuticals.

Erum And it's, it's very cool. There's a whole bunch of strains. They have this huge catalog, and I thought that was one of the highlights. It was one of the first things I, I s- saw, and the people there were so friendly. [00:02:00] It's Italian company. Very, very cool.

Karl Yeah. I mean, it's, um, I think I've gone three or four times.

Karl You've gone two or three times, and there's more biotech every single time we go. So there is this change of consciousness from chemistry to biology and how do we use biology to increase people's beauty. Um, you were there on the first day. Our friend Ray Cutland did a presentation, which I didn't get to go to.

Karl Did you go to that?

Erum No, I did not. But it was about biodesign. Um, heard it was very well attended. Just people are wanting to know what does biotech-enabled beauty mean, and how do you go beyond just the technical realm to a creative realm? I mean, beauty and personal care, a lot of the people that are in the industry are very creative people.

Erum So, uh, to approach it by biodesign, um, is very important, and Ray is the perfect person to be moderating the session. Um, Shara, um, sorry, Shara Tikoo of C60 Biosciences was a keynote [00:03:00] of that session.

Karl Nice.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I didn't get to go to that, um, 'cause I just had some other events, but, uh, I just heard great things.

Karl Yeah. Well, Ray's someone who we've been trying to get on the podcast many times, so maybe by listening to this, she'll know that we are still going to try to get her on. But there were a bunch of other people that we knew that we either ex- uh, that were either exhibiting or were there. So our friend Marie, is it Granstrom?

Karl Yeah, Marie Granström of Origins, oh, sorry, Mari Granström of Ocean, of, sorry, Mari Granström of Origins by Ocean was there. She had a nice booth. There was a lot of people coming through. I was really impressed by what she and her team are doing. They were specifically talking about two ingredients that I think are revolutionary, and they come straight from biology.

Erum Yes, yes. Um, they come from, uh, the sargassum, uh, sorry, they come from [00:04:00] sargassum algae or seaweed in the ocean. It's an invasive species, um, in the kind of the Caribbean area, and they just harvest it and are able to, um, create these amazing molecules that are, have so many benefits to help retain moisture in formulations when you use it.

Erum Not only is it retaining moisture in the actual product, but on your skin, that's like the primary reason why you're using it. Um, but they have a lot of, uh, great properties. I mean, their booth was crowded. So many people wanted to come and learn about this, uh, waste-to-value story, you know, being able...

Erum It's a climate story too, this invasive species. Um, but highly recommend people go back and listen to our episode with Mari Granström

Karl The other people that were there, uh, among many others were Kyle Landry of Delavie, who we love because they're creating ingredients based on these extremophiles that, uh, and most notably the one that was [00:05:00] on the International Space Station.

Karl Um, and then our friends at Geltor, we were lucky enough to have a long conversation with Alex Blorostanyi, who was on the podcast very early on, and it was great to see Geltor there. They have some exciting new products. I think we should get him to come on to talk about what those are. I didn't get to see, uh, Elsa or any of the team from Hello Biome.

Karl Did you get to see them?

Erum No, they, um, I did not get a chance to see them, but, um, I really wish I could have. I saw it on LinkedIn, Elsa couldn't make it to the actual supplier site, so we did miss her. Um, but they're a very interesting company that, uh, creates these kits so you can measure your microbiome diversity and how that relates to your skin.

Erum Um, so- And

Karl age.

Erum And age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's very fascinating. I mean, th- this is the whole, you know, taking control of your biometrics and really understanding how your biology works on a molecular level, on a microbial level, let's say. Not molecular. We're not there yet. We're not [00:06:00] on the molecular level yet in terms of at-home kits.

Erum Um, but yeah, so very cool. Uh, Hello Biome's really great. I do wanna go back to Geltor really quick, um, and I cannot wait to have Alex back on. But the one thing I did wanna share was that they have, you know, Geltor, they make collagen, and they make, like, a vegan collagen. And, um, you can have lots of applications.

Erum And I think on the fir- um, kind of when it first came out, it was applications for cosmetics, and then they, they'd get, um, to food, too, and they got approval to be in food. So they had these collagen shots, and they kept them chilled, so when we tried them, it was so refreshing. And it tastes great, and, and you get, uh, one gram of collagen, uh, which is your, you know, your daily need, I guess you can say.

Erum Um, very, very cool. I mean, I love to try sampling.

Karl I'm super excited about that, and I felt very lucky that we were able to sample that. I can't wait that, for that to be, like, a mass market product. I think it'll do very well.

Erum Yeah, absolutely

Karl Um, so before [00:07:00] we get into t- like today's episode, there's one thing we wanted to bring back from the SynBio Beta, um, conference that we were at just a couple weeks ago.

Karl And, um, specifically, we wanted to flag the BioAtlas, which is the first open source map of industrial biotech. Um, Jenny Rook of Genoa Ventures, who we're hoping to get on the podcast, and Richard Kinney of Hawkwood Biotech, who you've had on a panel, unveiled this BioAtlas. Uh, do you wanna talk about this a little bit, Ira?

Erum Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it's this open source map of the industrial biotech landscape, so it covers different companies, products, m- and covers markets that are shaping bio-based manufacturing. Um, so this is really good to explore how investments are being made in the space and how the market is evolving. Um, I need to dig into it a bit deeper, but we can certainly link to [00:08:00] it.

Erum It's a completely amazing, valuable resource. Um, something I think, Carl, if you and I study a bit more, we can help communicate it to a larger audience, all the insights. So we'll have to, um, bring Jenny on to talk about it.

Karl Yeah. Yeah. Or, or Richard. And I will say that the user interface is amazing. Um, it shows up as like a circle and has the different categories around that circle, and then you can click on it, and it kind of, uh, you know, unwinds what the different companies are, and then you can click and dig deeper on each one.

Karl I think it's a beautiful interface, and I salute the, the team, uh, both from Genoa and from Hawkwood for, for putting this together. It's a very much needed resource.

Erum Yes. Awesome. Okay. We're gonna dig. We're gonna dig. So let's set up our episode today. It's a very, very special episode. We're gonna be speaking with Senator Todd Young, and this really dovetails from our conversation about [00:09:00] US biomanufacturing and what we still need to do in order to bridge the gap.

Erum I mean, we had our amazing conversation during DC Climate Week, which incredible episode where we were live, um, in DC speaking with three investors and talking about what is needed from a investment capital point of view. But what do we need from a government point of view? What can we do to rally resources and help support the growth of the bioeconomy?

Karl Yeah, and this is, um, you know, biomanufacturing is a longstanding topic on the Grow Everything podcast. We've had a number of companies and organizations come on. For example, we've had BioMade, um, we've had Roebling and s- and their previous inc- uh, incarnation Synonym. Uh, we've had Arsenal-A Bio. Um, we've also had Cauldron come on.

Karl So biomanufacturing has really been a topic we've [00:10:00] touched on a lot. Uh, and there's a lot of other companies that we haven't gotten to yet. We would like to. And, um, really what, what we've seen is that there's this geopolitical angle to biomanufacturing that I think we've talked about a little bit. You know, China is making a huge investment in biomanufacturing.

Karl They are the largest fermenter in the world, and they are building pilot plants. And so the, kind of the push for biomanufacturing in the US is being framed as a three to five-year race to determine who's gonna be dominating the bioeconomy.

Erum Yeah. So as you can tell that this is very important for national security, and we had such a great conversation with Senator Todd Young, who really lays out some immediate steps that we can take as a nation in the United States to build a bioeconomy to secure our supply chains.

Erum So Senator Todd Young is a [00:11:00] representative from Indiana, and he has been spearheading a lot of biomanufacturing, biotechnology and how it's growing here in the United States. Um, he is a chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology and really been spearheading this idea of AI in biology.

Erum And it's great to hear someone that is in a, a leadership level in the government speaking about this. Um, anything else you wanna say, Carl, before we kick off our interview with Senator Todd Young?

Karl I'll just say, you know, he literally-- he understands literally what it means to grow our future. So I think with that, let's, let's let Senator Todd Young take it away INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Erum Senator Todd Young, welcome to the Grow Everything podcast. We are so excited to have you on to talk about the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, and it's [00:12:00] something that we're very excited to discuss because there's a lot of action happening, and hopefully an act happening.

Sen. Todd Young Yes.

Erum so let's learn a little bit about how you got here, 'cause your work has taken you deep into national security. You were in the Marines, thank you so much for your service, studied economics, and now you're in this world of biotechnology. So we want to know, what was the moment that made you realize biotech wasn't just a science story, but a matter of national security and opportunity?

Sen. Todd Young Well, thank you so much, Reem and, Carl. it's great to be here and talk about this topic that, I didn't think I knew much about, before I joined the National Security Commission for Emerging Biotech, and soon thereafter became chairman of, the commission. But it's like a lot of things in life.

Sen. Todd Young if you look back, you draw from your various life experiences. And, the convergence, as you alluded to, of my military background, first in the Navy at the [00:13:00] Naval Academy and then later, in the US Marine Corps, my time, just being a Hoosier in central Indiana, where we have a lot of biotech expertise between Indiana University, Purdue University, Eli Lilly and Company, the leading biopharma company in the world.

Sen. Todd Young We have Corteva Agrosciences, number, two pure play, agbioscience company. We have animal health expertise. So, I've just through absorption, picked up a lot about biotech over the years because of those companies. And then through this commission, I had the opportunity to, visit with some of the world's foremost experts in national security, many of whom actually had deep expertise in the world of biotech, our vulnerabilities, and, our strengths and, and how those might be marshaled to use biotech, to win what, we believe on the commission constitutes a generational, tech competition with the People's Republic of China.

Sen. Todd Young And, among the most [00:14:00] compelling things I, learned along the way, and I think accessible to people who don't deal with biotech on a daily basis, is just the products, the sorts of things that can now be made through the wonders of biotechnology. And among those things, I usually begin with shelf-stable blood It's like DARPA has already developed the ability, to take into the field, a United States Marine could carry a, very transportable bag of what looks like almost Kool-Aid.

Sen. Todd Young it's a powdered blood, and then it has, a liquid agent that it can be combined with right there in the same packaging. And a US marine could take this out into a contested environment without the need for any sort of cold change storage, and when blood is needed, be able to, produce their own blood, by shaking this up, And, so DARPA is moving to get this product quickly out into the field, [00:15:00] perhaps in Iran, or, if not in Iran, in future national security setting. But this is just one of countless examples of things that our innovators are already designing. And if we can get better at, catalyzing our private sector, our innovators, our entrepreneurs, we're not only gonna be able to design these products and imagine new ones, but produce them here in the United States for the purposes of national security.

Karl Yeah, that's amazing. we know, that biotech is the next frontier of global competition. From where you're sitting today, how's biology reshaping what national security looks like in this century?

Sen. Todd Young Well, I would say generally, I regard, and I think increasingly so many of my colleagues and, other Americans regard our competition with China as not narrowly a...

Sen. Todd Young It's not a military competition or a diplomatic competition, or even an economic competition. It's a technological [00:16:00] competition. And, if we can harness the best of our system and adapt it to this 21st century, competitive, effort, against China and other state capitalist countries and economies, then, I do believe that our values will prevail in the 21st century.

Sen. Todd Young As it relates specifically to biotech, we've seen its potential, and I just alluded to one small example of its potential to compress supply chains, which gives us economic security, but also can help us in time of war, when historically we've seen that, winning wars is, very much about logistics.

Sen. Todd Young And, and so we have the ability to compress supply chains. we can develop new critical products, to solve hard problems. we can come up with new ways of manufacturing. In fact, this is already an area where, unfortunately, the commission discovered that maybe China has an edge on us in this [00:17:00] area.

Sen. Todd Young uh, it involves using agricultural feedstocks, typically, putting them in a tank and coming up with a formula to, manufacture through biological means things that, historically we've, always relied on conventional manufacturing means. To give you some sense of just what the possibilities are here, 70% of the products that are currently manufactured through conventional means, can, today, through the wonders of biotech, be grown, can be grown and, manufactured through biomanufacturing.

Sen. Todd Young That, statistic comes from McKinsey. Of course, the subtext to that claim is that we need to get more predictable at producing things through biomanufacturing. it's very hard to get good at this unique skill. And we need to, be able to manufacture many of these things at scale to bring the cost down.

Sen. Todd Young And that's where I think, once [00:18:00] that begins to happen in more areas, we will become acclimated to biotech, designed and produced things, throughout our lives, to include for the purposes of, keeping us safe and secure.

Erum Senator, that warms my heart that you're talking about that.

Erum I mean, this, the whole idea of using biomanufacturing to grow everything, this is fundamentally what we talk about here on the podcast. So to hear you say it is like, I feel a bit more confident in America's ability to win in this, you know, race for, biomanufacturing and being an innovator in the space.

Erum So thank you for saying that.

Sen. Todd Young I'm very confident that we can do this. I mean, we've sent people to the moon, just sent them to the moon again, right? cured all sorts of diseases. I mean, America, if we can just draw on the best talent from, within our country and beyond, if we can draw on the strengths of our own system, but then adapt those [00:19:00] things to here and now current needs and current times, then, don't think we can be beaten, but it does require focus.

Sen. Todd Young We can't do everything. We have to have a plan to define what constitute nationally important, priorities, whether it's winning a space race or, deploying autonomous vehicles or, in this case, ensuring that we have best-in-class biomanufacturing capabilities, and then just going out unleashing the entrepreneurship innovators, private capital, and private sector to solve these problems.

Sen. Todd Young And, don't underestimate the difficulty of some of the individual challenges, but over the long scope of history and headed into the future, there's no doubt in my mind, we're gonna win this race because the American people are starting to wake up to the importance of this, problem set.

Erum Yes. Let's go. Okay, great. Yeah, let's go. So, yeah, so let's talk about some efforts, that are coming through, and some [00:20:00] action that's happening. can you talk to us a little bit about the America's Living Library Act? How did it get started, and how's it going?

Sen. Todd Young glad you asked about this legislation.

Sen. Todd Young I'm actually very proud of it, because this legislation would be the first ever effort in our country, that would, treat biological data as a strategic asset important to our national security. China, many years ago, had, understood how biological data, the sequencing of all kinds of living things, and using that information could inform new things, new products and industrial products, new treatments, in, biopharma, new seed varieties in, in agbioscience.

Sen. Todd Young And so, what the America's Living Library Act proposes is that we begin to develop a database of these unique traits, [00:21:00] that are, found out in nature, and, we do that by, of all things, sequencing our public lands, starting with a handful of national parks here in the United States, which are among the most biodiverse places on Earth.

Sen. Todd Young So if you can imagine what we propose, which is, sending people out to synthesize the DNA of flora and, fauna and every non-human living thing in our public lands, imagine what- A valuable database of traits that would provide for our innovators and entrepreneurs to harness to solve all kinds of problems that are hard to even predict.

Sen. Todd Young and this project would, be able to drive an economy and innovation at the intersection of AI and biotech and, provide a new value proposition for all of our, beautiful public lands and all of their wondrous biodiversity.

Karl That's so great. you [00:22:00] mentioned, one of the things that Bill talks about is the data will be AI ready, and today so much genomic data isn't AI ready. Who's gonna define what that standard is, and then who gets to decide what the resulting data gets used for?

Sen. Todd Young We actually spent a lot of time thinking about this and, understood that Congress, 535 sometimes spirited raucous members, is probably not, the ideal institution to micromanage data standards, right?

Sen. Todd Young but we do have very talented entities within government that historically have established standards. and, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is, certainly among, and, I would argue foremost of those entities. Well-equipped, within the White House and therefore, if this is going to be a national priority as we propose, it's important not to have an unwieldy bureaucracy which is far removed from the White House.

Sen. Todd Young So NIST is well [00:23:00] situated in that sense. But they have the expertise to come up with this, these standards in consultation with various industry stakeholders, national security stakeholders, and even other friendly governments, with an eye to eventually harmonizing our standards so that our values and, our, businesses and others, can define the biotech standards for the 21st century, not our adversaries with their export-oriented economies.

Sen. Todd Young We want our standards of consumer protection and ethics and openness built into the bioeconomy, and we have the ability to establish those standards if we're intentional about it now.

Erum Yeah. Incredible. And so the Living Library Act isn't just going to create this database. it's not just a collection of samples, but it's going to be this shared resource for researchers and innovators It also carves out funding for [00:24:00] education and outreach at the parks, which is so exciting.

Erum I cannot wait for that. I hope that happens. But, and you mentioned this a little bit, and maybe you can continue walking us through this line of thinking, what kind of discoveries or industries do you hope this kind of open genomic infrastructure might unlock?

Sen. Todd Young Well, the possibilities, to me feel almost endless.

Sen. Todd Young I think of, terms of categories, I think of material science. That's one of the top things that comes to mind for me. Super light, super, resilient materials that we've never conceived of. I recently read an article, know, in National Geographic, there's been excitement, among a certain set of, engineers for a long period of time about spider webs and just how incredibly strong they are if you could figure out how to replicate, what our spiders produce and, to scale, that sort of production in an economical way.

Sen. Todd Young But I'll tell you, as a Homer, as someone who's from Indiana and very [00:25:00] proud of Indiana's contribution to biotech, let me give you one, fairly well-known example in our parts, and that's the discovery of heat-loving microorganisms, in geysers in Yellowstone. This discovery, came from some Indiana University researchers, who were working out in the field in, Yellowstone.

Sen. Todd Young They discovered this new microorganism, and that discovery, because of the qualities of, those microorganisms, led to today's PCR test of all things. so we just don't know, what sort of eureka moments some of the most talented people in their disciplines are going to be able to have on account of revealing the traits of, countless living things in, nature.

Sen. Todd Young And it's not just, with the wonder of AI, it's not just isolated scientists, and, other inspired people who will make these connections. Now our [00:26:00] algorithms can help make these connections for us, and so we're designing tools that'll allow us to, come up with, with multiple solutions, to cancers and, and, um, all sorts of problems that, we've long wanted to solve.

Karl I'm glad you said that and, I think many of our listeners are familiar with the polymerase chain reaction that you mentioned. I didn't realize that that, organism was discovered at Indiana University, that discovery transformed biotech research

Sen. Todd Young we're of course very proud of that and, in addition to our football team.

Karl Yeah.

Sen. Todd Young And

Karl So there's often a gap between scientific discovery and real-world applications. From your vantage point, what's the biggest barriers preventing breakthroughs in biotech from reaching scale?

Sen. Todd Young if you ask the entrepreneurs, and I do, um, they say, We need capital. We need investment, especially in the earliest stages."

Sen. Todd Young So government in our country has [00:27:00] historically tried to de-risk fundamental science research, right? And then there gets to be a debate as you get closer towards what might someday constitute commercialization, how much involvement should, government have? but however you tackle this problem set, we know that our innovators and entrepreneurs benefit from risk capital and, we need to create the conditions so that, they can have more of it.

Sen. Todd Young They can have more of it because, it's just a reality that a lot of our, greatest breakthroughs scientifically don't find their way out of the lab. Or unfortunately, sometimes they get funded through means in other countries and, we're late to the game in terms of benefiting from these discoveries and manufacturing them here in the United States.

Sen. Todd Young And we wanna get to a point, because it's a unique expertise that we need to develop and because our economy could [00:28:00] benefit it. Wanna get to the point where we're not just, inventing some of the greatest products, but we're also producing them here and providing opportunities, every end of the, wage and income scale for Americans to benefit from this new, accelerating bio-economy.

Karl that's great. So let me ask one more questions about, the living library. let's just say the living library existed today and was fully populated, what do you think a researcher or a founder could do with that, that they wouldn't be able to do if that didn't exist?

Sen. Todd Young I think they could have a menu.

Sen. Todd Young This is how a layperson thinks about it, right? If I'm looking, not particularly versed in genotypes, but if instead I'm thinking about traits, phenotypes, right? Bioluminescence, climate resiliency, flavor traits, right? And, this could [00:29:00] conceivably provide, repository of phenotypes that researchers could look through and borrow from as we look to create new things, new products.

Sen. Todd Young And to me, that's just incredibly, exciting, to learn about that possibility. And, you know, the, the sky's sort of the limit. So that's what I think could be possible. and, it of course would have all kinds of implications for national security, which may, in the end, focus the minds of people here in Washington, because that's our most important responsibility, but it's gonna have spillover benefits in the areas of consumer products and, saving lives, extending lives, improving lives.

Sen. Todd Young who knows, maybe even entertainment, although I can't currently conceive of a way in which we'd be more entertained by, you know, coming up with a... Well, I suppose, you know, how about a bioluminescent peach? That [00:30:00] might be fun for a few seconds, right? Yes.

Erum Or like the Emoji Movie, or like the one about the emotions, like Inside Out, but just microbes.

Sen. Todd Young That, yeah, you're onto something there. I don't- Where we going? I wonder if there's a way before this airs to, you know, be able to patent that idea, but ... That's

Erum for free. That's for the people.

Sen. Todd Young Okay. All right. That's, and it- It's a, it's a public good now, right?

Erum Yes.

Karl Yeah.

Erum Exactly. Exactly.

Sen. Todd Young Okay. Well, we have our final full question, then we have some quick questions, but we like to visioneer here on the podcast to give people some ideas of what the future can look like when it comes to using biology and biotechnology.

Erum So I wanna know, what does success look like for US leadership in biotechnology? What needs to be true for scientists, infrastructure, and collaboration for that vision to become reality?

Sen. Todd Young Well, for me, and I alluded to it a couple of minutes [00:31:00] ago, but it means we continue to have the world's most talented researchers coming to the United States because this is where the action is, staying in the United States, trained in the United States.

Sen. Todd Young we have some of our young people incredibly excited about biotech and motivated to learn a discipline that's not always intuitive because they sense that's, where they could have meaningful work someday. A- so all of those things, will be part of the future of biotech in this country.

Sen. Todd Young And then There, there needs to be an opportunity for us to produce the inventions of today and tomorrow here in the United States. and what that looks like in a state like mine, I can imagine it. it's distributed manufacturing. It's, having manufacturing out in farm country USA, where we take what were previously, not particularly valuable or even, regarded as costs on the balance sheet, ag waste products, [00:32:00] and using them as the feedstocks to a modern bioeconomy.

Sen. Todd Young And then, for those who care about climate issues or just general economic efficiency, you can be closer to where the consumers are. And if this sounds a little disruptive, this is gonna be highly disruptive. But if you have command of these forces and feel in control because you and your leadership have prepared you for this future, it could be enormous opportunity for us, to incentivize further good ideas and produce them for our consumers and workers to really benefit from this.

Sen. Todd Young So Those are some of the hallmarks of, my, vision of the bioeconomy. And I think you'll hear echoes maybe better articulated from some of the, subject matter experts, but you'll hear hints and echoes of what I just laid out, from most people who've spent a little time with this topic.

Karl Yeah. Thanks so much, Senator, for saying that. the idea of distributed biomanufacturing [00:33:00] in the places where we have agricultural feedstock is something that we talk a lot about, and we see that as, absolutely possible, and it is our future. and it's right in front of us. we're gonna ask you a couple of quick-fire questions.

Karl I'll start with the first one. Which national park would you personally send scientists to for hidden biotech gold?

Sen. Todd Young Oh, well, goodness. Well, Yellowstone comes to mind because of Indiana University's, earlier finding there. but, we are very proud in Indiana of our first national park.

Sen. Todd Young It was recently designated Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. And the reason it was chosen as a national park is the same reason generations ago the Everglades were selected Some people questioned why the Everglades would be selected, believe it or not, as a, national park because it didn't fit, the mental paradigm many people had, trees and all the rest.

Sen. Todd Young And the reason was because of its biodiversity. And what [00:34:00] we've seen in Indiana is a unique coexistence of a biodiverse landscape and heavy industry of all things. We figured out how to make those things work together. So if we could come up with yet another unique value proposition for that national park, it would create an economic incentive and a national security and economic imperative to protect that beautiful national park for the next generation.

Erum Ooh, wow, yeah. I wanna go and check that out. Very cool.

Sen. Todd Young Oh, you should. It's one of the most visited national parks in the country now, and much of that admittedly has to do with the fact that it's, in the shadow of Chicago, Illinois, and, it's easy to reach from, Chicago. So please come check it out sometime.

Erum Yeah, absolutely. Okay, next question. If the Living Library uncovers something huge, what's the dream outcome?

Sen. Todd Young everyone, uh, lives as long as they wanna live and, the inventors get rich off of it and are highly [00:35:00] philanthropic and, I'll be a little less, casual with the response.

Sen. Todd Young The dream outcome, is for others to draw inspiration from that and, here again, more young people to decide to, commit themselves to getting involved in biotech and contributing to this new bioeconomy, and I think that's an imminently achievable goal and, it's something I'm excited about. As a father of four kids, and they're thinking about their futures, would love it if they found some way to, apply their talents and, gifts, in the world of, biotech.

Karl Yeah, I love that.

Karl So be honest, have you Googled a biotech term recently, and if so, what was it?

Sen. Todd Young Oh, gosh, probably almost daily. and, it was fairly early on as, chairman of this commission that I realized I don't have to be the biotech expert, right? we regulate and, oversee airplane safety, and I'm not an aviation expert, but we have [00:36:00] to ask good questions and, be, skilled on the lingo.

Sen. Todd Young So, was it nematode? Yeah. Yeah. I went on a congressional delegation trip with a handful of colleagues to Antarctica of all places, and there aren't a whole lot of, of little, things that are able to live down there in the, certain extreme temperatures.

Sen. Todd Young But, had to revisit some of my advanced biology terms from high school to keep up with the talented, university students, American university students that, were looking how to apply their talents in, various beneficial ways.

Karl Amazing.

Erum Yes. Okay, final one. So if or when you have to explain biotech at a dinner party or out on the Hill or to colleagues of yours, what's your one-liner?

Sen. Todd Young This may be a run-on sentence, but one-liner is the same biotech that we use to produce pills and seeds, can be used to defend [00:37:00] our values and our way of life. Because it's the same science, right? the sentence has ended, but it tends to get the attention of members of Congress, about what they're missing, as it relates to biotech, and it really is.

Sen. Todd Young it's about a lot more than just, the biotech that we mostly hear about. it's about this whole bioindustrial area, and it's about biomanufacturing and, even certain services, that are being offered through biotech. And, most of us had never really had much exposure to that until you know, until I was on the commission and, my colleagues are increasingly learning about it.

Karl That's amazing. Well, Senator Young, we have been so blessed and happy to have you here on the Grow Everything podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to talk with us today.

Sen. Todd Young the show is great, and, thank you for giving me an opportunity to, talk about, biotechnology, the [00:38:00] work of the commission, and America's Living Library Act.

Erum Thank you, and thank you for your service.

Karl Yeah. We'd love to have you come back on in a year or two after the act has, been implemented and we can see some progress.

Sen. Todd Young That'd be great. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Karl Thank you so much.

Erum So Carl, what did you think of that discussion with Senator Todd Young?

Karl I mean, first of all, we should pat ourselves on the back because it's the first time we've had a [00:39:00] standing representative from the government on the podcast, and talk-- Dr.-- uh, Senator Young is the perfect person for that, especially since he speaks to the things that we talk about here on the podcast, which is how do we transform the economy with biology?

Karl What are people doing th- to innovate with biotech? And he really gets it. So I really appreciated him coming on, and also thanks to his team for helping, you know, put that interview together

Erum Yeah. I mean, I just love that he had examples and he looked at the battlefield, and that is where a lot of, um, resources have been coming from to support some biotech initiatives and biology initiatives.

Erum But the example of the, the blood, the, you know, ready-to-use blood that, you know, is just made from, you know, not donated from humans, but just produced and manufactured for the very reason of, you know, people, um, soldiers being hurt on the battlefield. And it's just, [00:40:00] that's like, that's such a good example of biotechnology.

Erum It's just a great, great example, and I think something that we'll have to keep referring to as a win in application to be able to channel more resources for people to look at how biology can be used to make all sorts of things, not just for battles. You know, battles are important, but that leads to other applications for everyday use, which, very exciting.

Karl The other thing I would just add, um, in kind of my analysis is I'm excited that this kind of legislative push, you know, comes from essentially the Midwest. You know, the Midwest is where there's a lot of land, there's a lot of biomass. You know, we produce so much corn, so much soybeans. And yes, the technology centers seem to be, you know, the coast, Boston, San Francisco.

Karl There is a lot of innovation that happens in the middle of the country. But I love this idea of putting these biomanufacturing plants where there is feedstock, and we don't have to transport this feedstock [00:41:00] very far. And Senator Young really understood that, so kudos to him. And also, just one more thing about the senator.

Karl I mean, he admitted at the beginning he didn't really know anything about biotech. This is all new to him, and he clearly is a quick student. He got it, um, and it was, it was really kind of sobering to hear him talk about it as someone who's a newcomer to this space.

Erum Yeah, absolutely. And I just, I see his excitement.

Erum You know, a lot of the conversation about what's, um, happening in the US in terms of jobs and, like, the threat of AI taking our jobs, there's a lot of work to be done in biotech and biology. I mean, the name of this podcast is Grow Everything. Everything's a lot. Yeah. Everything's a lot of things that need to be made, and this is the decentralized nature of biotech.

Erum You can really, like, spin up a manufacturing or, like, um, let's say fermentation tanks in these, like, mega mansions in, in the United States. You can do it in your backyard. [00:42:00] People-- I have friends that live in, like, Pennsylvanian suburbs. They have, like, vineyards in their, like, property. Like, I mean, not to say, like, I have all these fancy friends, but I'm saying that there's a lot of space that, you know, people have That, you know, you could, you know, make something that's, um, a, all, you know, all the biotechnology products that we talk about here on the pod that are like textiles and different, um, materials to be used.

Erum Obviously, you know, nutraceuticals, you know, functional ingredients, all these things can be made through biotechnology. So to be able to have people across the US being able to understand this and how much it costs and what it takes is super valuable. And, you know, Senator Todd Young, thank you so much for spearheading this initiative.

Karl Absolutely. All right, well, with that, let's, um, just do a couple of shout-outs as we end the episode. Um, we've mentioned this before. We will be doing a live podcast at New York Tech Week on June 3rd. We're going to be working with our friends at [00:43:00] Revel- uh, sorry, we're gonna be working with our friends at Roebling.

Karl Um, it's okay. Uh, we're gonna be doing a live demo with our friends in Roebling, uh, looking at AI-powered process engineering. We're gonna put the link in the details, so if you're able to attend, we would love to see you there. We're also planning on doing a live fundraiser at Genspace, which is where Irom and I met many years ago.

Karl The details on that will follow. And then finally, we've mentioned we are communications partners with World of Biomarkets. They'll be at The Hague in the Netherlands in June and in Omaha, Nebraska in September, which is where we'll be. And, uh, use promo code GrowEverything for a 25% discount to attend. We hope to see you there.

Erum Yeah, Omaha, the heartland. Look, we're talking a lot about the heartland, so it's great that we can actually go there now and be able to meet some people and see what the, the vibe is like over there.

Karl Absolutely.

Erum Um, so [00:44:00] thank you so much for tuning in to the GrowEverything podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or just wanna share some stories, please reach out to us.

Erum The information is in our show notes, and don't forget to subscribe to our Substack. Let's grow.