3 lessons from the biotech revolution that can shape U.S. innovation today

December 9, 2025 / read on washingtondc.jhu.edu

Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Phil Sharp could have easily never come to discover RNA splicing, which launched the biotechnology revolution, in 1977. In many ways, the odds were stacked against him: He grew up on a farm in rural Kentucky, he struggled with dyslexia, and neither of his parents had attended college.

Still, his parents encouraged him to go to college, and he saved money for tuition from raising cattle and selling tobacco. Sharp’s grit, combined with an innovation ecosystem in the U.S. that invested in science, created the environment that led to a triumph not just for Sharp, but also America’s ability to innovate, according to Youseph Yazdi, assistant professor and executive director of the Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design at Johns Hopkins University.

At a recent screening of the documentary Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution, Yazdi and the film’s director, Bill Haney, discussed the key lessons from this breakthrough that can inform the way the U.S. approaches innovation in a new era of great power competition.

Breakthroughs require a strong ecosystem of discovery and implementation

While people like Sharp can often be framed as the sole discoverer of a breakthrough, they often serve as catalysts.

“Science requires an ecosystem,” Haney said, from the high school teacher who inspires a student to the university that takes a chance on an applicant despite their weaknesses, as the University of Illinois did when Sharp failed three of the four entrance exams in chemistry needed to enroll in its chemistry department for graduate school. Rather than rejecting him, the university told him to take undergraduate senior classes.

The government must also be a part of that ecosystem. Galvanized by the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik in 1957, the government helped propel the biotech revolution, too.

“One way that this society reacted was to double down on its own people and support STEM education across America,” Yazdi said.

This was reflected in the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which boosted funding primarily for education in science, mathematics, and foreign languages, and later in former President Richard Nixon’s “war on cancer,” in which he signed the National Cancer Act to boost the nation’s cancer research capabilities.

This helped America “crack the code for innovation,” Yazdi said.

“The idea that in a society, education is available to a rural farmer in the middle of Kentucky so that

the society is able to capture those random geniuses that could be anywhere,” represents that national breakthrough, he said.

This is still important to maintain today.

“The competition with China, for example, in biotech is very real,” Haney said. “We need to have a dynamic, rich, effective economy where we are more like our traditional values. … Weakening the innovative foundations of the country in favor of other countries with very different and less humanizing political systems doesn’t seem very wise to me.”

Universities play a key role in supporting discoveries—and the people behind them

One of the core elements of Sharp’s success was the University of Illinois’ support despite his failure to pass the necessary chemistry entrance exams for graduate school. Universities should still show this type of support, Yazdi said.

“Does higher education still have that welcoming embrace of people who are not necessarily prepared the way that Phil was unprepared to get into the University of Illinois?” he asked. “Are we succeeding in maintaining that access to higher education?”

Once those students become clinicians or scientists at a university, they shouldn’t be afraid to transition from academia to industry either, Yazdi added. This can sometimes be institutionally enforced, he said, yet he pointed to Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, which translates and commercializes Hopkins research into accessible technologies and new companies, as a model for how universities can encourage experts to operate from either sphere of the innovation ecosystem.

Scientist transparency and access can help address public skepticism

Vaccines, which are rigorously tested before they’re introduced and then closely monitored for safety after released, are one of the most effective ways to prevent disease. While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wave of vaccine hesitancy, it isn’t the first time the science community has faced public reservations about vaccines, nor the first time that scientists have had to address these hesitations.

Sharp’s revolutionary research in Cambridge initially made the community uncomfortable, resulting in city council meetings and special hearings where he and other scientists had to answer community questions about the potential risks of genetic engineering. The open dialogue ultimately helped build trust and support for biotech.

Haney argued that there should be more public meetings, town halls, and other opportunities for discussions about new science today.

“[Scientists] don’t have to pretend there’s no risk,” Haney said. “They can say, ‘There is risk, but we might cure Alzheimer’s.’”

Researchers must also communicate better with the general public, Yazdi said, and higher education has an opportunity to help them sharpen those communication skills.

“It starts with respect and not denigration,” he said. “When people raise concerns and fears about something, whether it’s a vaccine or something happening in science, it’s so critical that people are not talked down to, that they’re treated with respect, that there’s patience.”