How synthetic biology can help bioremediation
The World Health Organization reported that “an estimated 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment in 2012, nearly 1 in 4 of total global deaths”. Air, water and soil pollution were the significant risk factors, and there is an urgent need for effective r...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Current opinion in chemical biology 2020-10, Vol.58, p.86-95 |
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Hauptverfasser: | , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | The World Health Organization reported that “an estimated 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment in 2012, nearly 1 in 4 of total global deaths”. Air, water and soil pollution were the significant risk factors, and there is an urgent need for effective remediation strategies. But tackling this problem is not easy; there are many different types of pollutants, often widely dispersed, difficult to locate and identify, and in many cases cost-effective clean-up techniques are lacking. Biology offers enormous potential as a tool to develop microbial and plant-based solutions to remediate and restore our environment. Advances in synthetic biology are unlocking this potential enabling the design of tailor-made organisms for bioremediation.
In this article, we showcase examples of xenobiotic clean-up to illustrate current achievements and discuss the limitations to advancing this promising technology to make real-world improvements in the remediation of global pollution.
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ISSN: | 1367-5931 1879-0402 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.cbpa.2020.07.004 |