Paul Freemont on Synthetic Biology in the UK

To begin the year, we head across the pond for an outlook on the thriving community of synthetic biology in the United Kingdom. Paul Freemont was a co-author of the UK's synthetic biology roadmap and co-directs SynbiCITE, the national center for the commercialization of synthetic biology. A few years ago the government put an initial investment of $300 million pounds into the field, and "everything was going swimmingly well," says Paul. "Then COVID happened."