NSF Funding is Key to the Biotechnology Workforce—and National Security

Last month, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), chaired by Senator Todd Young (R-IN), published a report raising the alarm around the United States’ ceded ground in biotechnology to competitors like China. Among its many policy prescriptions, the report calls for bringing “the full weight of American innovation" to maintain U.S. leadership in the biotechnology industry.

Based on two years of research, the 195-page document offers a sobering conclusion: China is quickly leapfrogging the U.S. in biotechnology dominance, having made the emerging technology a priority for the next twenty years. The United States must act in the next three years to remain competitive.

Central to the agenda is a charge to build the biotechnology workforce of the future through expanded “bioliteracy” and training programs. Much like AI literacy has become a zeitgeist in education and national security circles, the Commission argues that biotechnology ought to be front and center for workforce leaders.

The report emphasizes the importance of these goals for the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the nation’s grant-making wellspring for research and STEM education.

Unfortunately, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency–DOGE–enabled by the Trump administration has taken the opposite steps needed to shore up the NSF to maximize America’s biotech edge. Over the first hundred days of the administration’s tenure, mass layoffs, grant cancellations, and threats of halving its budget have upended the science agency. Last week, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, a Trump appointee, resigned, stating that he had “done all he can” to steer the agency through the tumult.

As Congress weighs in through this summer budget cycle, it’s important to understand better the role of the NSF for the biotech workforce. Although the NSF’s role in supporting university biotechnology programs is well known, it’s just as important in training the skilled technical workers who power the bioeconomy.

Not Just Universities: NSF Impact on Community College Biotech Training

Research from New America’s Future of Work and Innovation Economy initiative has specialized in studying the role of the NSF and U.S. science policy for emerging technology workforce training, including around the ability of community colleges to meet labor market needs in emerging biotech tech hubs.

For example, Forsyth Tech Community College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is leveraging NSF funding to prepare students for skilled technical workforce jobs in biotechnology and regenerative medicine. These jobs will not serve the health of North Carolinians but bolster the state’s economic development and contributions to national security ambitions.

Last year, the college was the site of the announcement of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s historic Regional Innovation Engines program. This key CHIPS and Science Act investment represents the broadest attempt to support place-based research-driven economic development since the Morrill Act at the height of the Civil War. Each of the NSF Engines aims to grow industries around emerging technology areas.

As a key partner in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine, Forsyth Tech has added a new non-degree credential focused on bioprinting. This credential offers hands-on training in industry-grade equipment essential to the Commission's biotechnology aspirations.

Thanks to NSF funding, Forsyth Tech Community College students are getting hands-on experience using the most advanced technologies in the medical field. They complete their programs ready to contribute to biomedical innovation on their first day of work.

NSF funding has enabled the community college to purchase cutting-edge equipment that would be otherwise cost-prohibitive and create hands-on learning environments that mirror real-world biotech workplaces. This includes:

• Bioprinters capable of creating tissues for organ transplant research
• Electron microscopes for cellular analysis
• A high-end mass spectrometer in the Analytical and Molecular Skills Development Lab

These are not just classroom exercises; they are real-world scientific contributions. In one case, a Forsyth Tech student used the lab’s mass spectrometer to isolate a compound from a botanical native to Madagascar, known for its healing properties. This work could lead to new treatments for wound care—a vivid reminder that investments in education can yield direct benefits to us all.

The same lab infrastructure that helps students learn also supports startups and small biotech firms, offering access to high-end tools they could not otherwise afford. This shared innovation ecosystem is driven by NSF investments, and thousands of students have already benefited from such investments, with many stepping straight into biotech labs after completing their program.

NSF programs like Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT), which NSF created following the CHIPS Act and was a best practice called out in Young’s report, were designed to scale hands-on work-based learning opportunities in emerging technology areas just like these. Across the country, MiraCosta College in California leveraged NSF ExLENT funding to expand internship and pre-apprenticeship programs in biomanufacturing.

NSF Funding Capacity Building of Community Colleges for the Future of Work

Unlike voucher-based training programs housed at other agencies, NSF funding enables colleges to contribute more ambitious and strategic forms of tech-based economic development.

For example, Forsyth Tech has been home to the National Center for the Biotechnology Workforce since 2004, which brings together industry, educators, and workforce developers to co-design solutions for the bioscience workforce needs. The college also plays a key role in the InnovATEBIO National Biotechnology Education Center located at Austin Community College, in Austin, Texas, alongside Finger Lakes Community College in New York. The center was a best practice cited in the NSCEB report.

Centers like these have been made possible thanks to NSF’s Advanced Technological Education program, which has played a critical role in meeting the bioeconomy’s talent needs. The program’s first biotechnology institutional award was made to Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, which is still active today. NSF ATE’s first biotechnology center award was made to BioLink at City College of San Francisco in 1998.

Since then, NSF ATE has pushed forward efforts like these for over 30 years, reaching nearly half of the country’s 1,200 community colleges.

Why NSF Funding Matters to Community Colleges and the Biotech Workforce

Speaking at a Community College Congressional Caucus briefing hosted on Capitol Hill by New America and the Association of Community College Trustees earlier this year, Forsyth Tech President Janet Spriggs said that this progress would not be possible without NSF funding, commending Senators Thom Tillis, Ted Budd, and Representative Virginia Foxx for their support. The return on this investment is clear in North Carolina, where biotech is a major economic driver, and that could be the case all across the country if NSF funding is sustained and increased.

Spriggs said these policymakers recognize that NSF funding is not just an educational investment—it is a strategic commitment to economic development and the health and safety of the nation. The NSCEB’s report confirms that view.

Yet, this administration’s actions seem to support the opposite. Employees at NSF (and other leading science and research agencies) have been fired en masse, with DOGE recently asking the NSF to plan to lay off half of its workforce. The agency has already cancelled more than 1,000 competitively won grants, including those supporting education and workforce development. Threats to halve the NSF’s budget jeopardize even the most basic agency functions. These actions will not help the U.S. catch up to China technologically. They will only lead to this country falling further behind.

In a world where scientific talent is urgently needed, community colleges prove that workforce opportunity, innovation, and public good can thrive at the same intersection. NSF investments empower these institutions to deliver on that promise. Continued federal support—and bipartisan advocacy—are vital to ensuring that this work continues and expands.

After all, the next life-saving breakthrough might begin in a community college lab.