The power of synthetic biology for bioproduction, remediation and pollution control

TLDR

The UN Sustainable Development Goals urge synthetic biology to develop transformative, bio‑based technologies that reduce emissions, replace fossil‑fuel processes, and require new guidelines for large‑scale deployment. The study reviews recent advances and governance principles that could enable progress toward these sustainability goals.

Abstract

The agenda of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1] challenges the synthetic biology community—and the life sciences as a whole—to develop transformative technologies that help to protect, even expand our planet's habitability. While modern tools for genome editing already benefit applications in health and agriculture, sustainability also asks for a dramatic transformation of our use of natural resources. The challenge is not just to limit and, wherever possible revert emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases, but also to replace environmentally costly processes based on fossil fuels with bio‐based sustainable alternatives. This task is not exclusively a scientific and technical one but will also require guidelines and regulations for the development and large‐scale deployment of this new type of bio‐based production. Some recent advances that can (or soon could) enable us to make progress in these areas—and several possible governance principles—need to be addressed.