Good Day BIO: Mental health tools and super tomatoes

We’re coming to the end of Mental Health Month. If you didn't get to take a breather during May, Memorial Day weekend is a good chance to pause for relaxation and resilience-building—especially given the heightened stress every single one of us has faced over the last year. If you need help, we gathered some tools and resources from a few BIO friends, below. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the mental health of people of all ages,” according to Mental Health America (MHA), the organization that initiated Mental Health Month in 1949. 

Check out the MHA online toolkit, which includes practical one-pagers on topics including accepting reality, adapting after trauma, managing anger, escaping thinking traps, and processing big changes—available in English and Spanish.

“You are not alone,” says the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)—see the organization’s toolkit and information package, as well as the blog with practical tips and personal stories that show how we’re all in this together. 

The mental health challenges of farmers receive special attention from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which launched an online directory of mental health resources in every U.S. state and Puerto Rico for farmers, ranchers, and their families. It’s an essential guide to hard-to-find services in rural communities—see the directory here. 

Listen: COVID-19 has exacerbated the mental health crisis in America—particularly for communities of color and the most vulnerable patients. Richard Pops, Chairman and CEO of Alkermes—which develops long-lasting injectables to treat alcohol and opioid dependence and serious mental illness—joined the I am BIO Podcast to discuss what we need to do.

Do you need mental health support? Call the NAMI Helpline at 800-950-NAMI, or in a crisis, text “NAMI” to 741741.

And if you need some long-weekend reading…

We’re still thinking about the importance of IP protections to investment and innovation. Melissa Brand, BIO’s Assistant General Counsel and Director of Intellectual Property, wrote two pieces for IP Watchdog about a pending National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) rulemaking and the proper use of march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act, as well as a warning about how a TRIPS waiver sets a dangerous precedent for how we tackle other challenges like climate change.

Biotech firms are making advances in gene editing that could transform ordinary tomatoes into a health-boosting superfood, reports Innovature.

Tomatoes are a natural source of gamma-aminobutyric acid,an amino acid that can help lower blood pressure—a concern for half of all American adults.

But with gene editing, one Japanese biotech startup has developed a seed that can grow tomatoes with FIVE TIMES as much of the amino acid, Innovature explains. 

This could turn the ordinary tomato into something closer to preventive medicine—by helping to lower blood pressure and in turn reducing the risk of cardiac arrest and stroke. 

It’s not only the tomato. Thanks to innovations in biotechnology, we’re seeing modified-starch potatoes that are easier to digest, sweet potatoes with high vitamin A content that can help battle vitamin deficiencies in developing nations, and even gluten-free wheat.

And it’s not only crops, either. The inaugural harvest of AquaBounty Technologies’ salmon began this week, bringing a more sustainable protein option to diners’ plates soon, reports the AP.

Why it matters: In addition to improving the nutritional value of crops to “address hunger issues globally and in the US,” gene editing and other biotechnologies can improve the efficiency and resiliency of these crops in the face of climate change, BIO said in testimony to the House Agriculture Committee in March.

Learn more about how BIO members are working to improve our food and making farming more efficient, productive, and environmentally friendly.

President Biden’s Friday: He’s expected to propose a $6 trillion 2022 budget package “that includes large new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change,” reports The New York Times. We’ll have details next week. Meanwhile, he’s joining Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in Alexandria, VA, to deliver remarks on Virginia’s progress against COVID-19, then heading to Hampton, VA for remarks with the first lady at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: The Senate is sticking around town a little bit longer than planned, as they continue consideration of a $250 billion+ bill aimed at making the United States more competitive against China—POLITICO has more.