Mapping the Biotechnology Standards Landscape: ASCET Releases Environmental Scan

Standards are becoming decisive in how quickly biotechnology moves from scientific breakthrough to real-world deployment — shaping trust, interoperability, and scalability across the field.

The Advancing Standardization for Critical and Emerging Technologies (ASCET) Center of Excellence (CoE) has released an environmental scan mapping the current biotechnology standardization landscape and identifying the pre-standardization gaps most consequential to sustained U.S. leadership in the field.

Access the report.

Spanning bioprocessing, biosafety, agricultural biotechnology, and biofuels, the scan assesses biotechnology standardization at all levels by:

• Mapping the standardization landscape across the field’s major application areas, from bioprocessing to biofuels
• Identifying key stakeholders, existing standards activity, current roadmaps, and the relevant standards bodies
• Assessing gaps spanning economic and regulatory uncertainty, feedstock and supply chain vulnerability, and knowledge silos
• Highlighting opportunities including AI-ready biological data, shared best-practice platforms, and biomanufacturing scale-up

As biotechnology grows as a driver of economic growth, national security, and competitiveness, well-timed and strategically prioritized standardization will be essential to translating advances into impact. This is the third ASCET critical and emerging technology (CET) scans, joining the center’s earlier work on AI and quantum.

About ASCET

ASCET is a cooperative agreement between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and ASTM International that supports private sector-driven engagement in international standards development. ANSI is an implementing partner of ASCET, along with ASME, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) Robotics, CSA Group, IEEE, and UL Standards & Engagement (ULSE).