The climate crisis is no longer a far-fetched concept, but an existential threat to humanity. It’s the defining challenge of our time, demanding sustained action from individuals, communities, governments and employers worldwide. The scientific consensus is that human activities are accelerating climate change, with severe consequences for our planet and future generations. Positive, sustainable human activities can help reduce some of the impacts of these consequences.
Society needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy. This involves embracing renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, conserving natural habitats, and fostering innovation in green technologies. It also fundamentally involves the power and potential of Engineering Biology. Moreover, there is a need to adapt to the inevitable changes already set in motion by implementing resilient infrastructure and protecting vulnerable, poverty-stricken populations.
Every action counts in this global effort and actions in the UK are of course vital, through informed choices, advocating stronger environmental policies and using modern biotechnology (leveraging the power of biology) to protect our planet.
The UK Science and Technology Framework sets out goals for science and technology through to 2030, highlighting the importance of investing in R&D and increasing UK talent and skills, to improving investment, pulling through new technology and scaling up. The Framework outlined a focus on creating strategic advantage across five critical technologies: AI, future telecommunications, semiconductors, quantum technologies and engineering biology.
The BioIndustry Association (BIA) has published an extensive report on the possible positive impacts of Engineering Biology, coining the term ‘Deep Biotech’ – disruptive innovation for global sustainability – which offer solutions to living more harmoniously with nature.
Engineering biology, also known as synthetic biology, arises from our deep understanding of the building blocks of life, through reading, writing and predicting DNA/RNA functions while broadly harnessing the mechanisms of biological systems in cells, organisms and populations for industrial and economic benefit. It’s a bioscience sector harnessing the principles of biology to design and construct new biological parts, devices, and systems. This developing field holds great promise for mitigating the impacts of climate change through innovative solutions, leveraging the power of living organisms and developing adaptive strategies to cope with its effects.
A number of key approaches and strategies are employed to address climate change through Engineering Biology including:
- Carbon Sequestration and Capture through enhanced photosynthesis, engineering plants/algae and utilising soil microorganisms, capturing more CO₂; even creating artificial, synthetic trees that mimic carbon absorption
- Modern Bioremediation - pollutant-degrading approaches, utilising engineered bacteria and fungi to break down and capture highly toxic and recalcitrant environmental pollutants such as oil spills, heavy metals, and plastic waste
- Sustainable Agriculture including nitrogen-fixing crops, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, while addressing drought and heat tolerance, creating crop varieties resilient to extreme weather conditions, ensuring food security
- Bio-based materials and energy, including bioplastics utilising microorganisms to produce biodegradable plastics from renewable resources
- Marine and coastal ecosystems: engineering algae to produce biofuels and bioproducts while capturing CO₂ and even creating carbon sinks and coral reef restoration tackling temperature changes and ocean acidification
The potential of engineering biology to combat climate change is vast. It offers transformative potential in the fight against climate change. Researchers are pioneering new solutions across industries that will make future generations healthier, more prosperous and live more sustainably. Examples of this are the Human Genome Project and developing mRNA vaccines to fight COVID, to organs grown from scratch and new environmentally acceptable pesticides. Engineering biology truly is powering the next revolution in biological sciences.
The BIA report is far reaching in its outlook, with their CEO Steve Bates highlighting “the potential to unlock a healthy bio-economy, by replacing environmentally damaging practices with more sustainable bio-based ones.” The report reiterates that the UK has had long-standing success in the power of biology and modern biotechnology, particularly impacting on the life sciences, in gene therapy and vaccine development. Data harmonisation is a critical enabler of this change. Standardisation of protein structures enabled DeepMind, for example, to develop AlphaFold, an AI system predicting protein structures.
The UK is a leader in engineering biology. Collectively, engineering biology firms have fundraised over £5.2 billion between 2017 to 2022. The accelerating pace of science and technology advances is creating huge opportunities for the UK as a global hub of R&D and innovative start-ups. The challenge engineering biologists face is predicting and controlling biology with the accuracy needed for industrial scale-up production.
In addition to establishing a new Engineering Biology Steering Group bringing together academic, start-up and industry leaders in engineering biology working in the UK, there remains a drive to grow talent and skills, retaining a diverse talent pool to match demand from academia and industry, covering scientific, technical and entrepreneurial skills. Inspiring a new generation of bio-scientists, with imaginative minds from schools, is part of the bio-revolution, because without great minds and practical capabilities, the ‘Deep Biotech’ sector will fail to live up to its global reputation and fail to achieve the Government’s vision for the UK to have a broad, rich engineering biology ecosystem that can safely develop and commercialise the many opportunities.
STEM Learning's role
As a biotechnologist, currently involved in helping to solve the STEM Skills crises, I recognise our key role in addressing the industrial strategy foci, in particular inspiring a new generation to see this as a growth sector and an exciting career destination of choice. STEM Learning exists to improve the lives of young people through STEM education. We work with government, employers and educators to improve diversity in the STEM workforce, increase social mobility for young people through improved employment prospects and reduce skill shortages. This leads to economic growth and a highly skilled workforce, contributing to the UK becoming a STEM superpower.
STEM Learning is working across education, research and the wider STEM sector, using a Climate Change Educational Partnership (CCEP) to support the delivery of climate change related lessons and activities. This aims to enhance educators’ subject knowledge and understanding, so that lessons are based on scientific evidence, and increase students’ understanding of the science and implications of climate change.
It provides CPD courses and opportunities for schools to engage with STEM Ambassadors who work within climate change settings, and STEM enrichment opportunities. Climate Ambassadors provide free expertise and support to schools and colleges to develop and deliver impactful climate action plans, supporting the development of the peer-to-peer networks enhancing climate action across the whole education system. It supports the UK Government’s ambition for all education settings to have a climate action plan in place by 2025 – covering four key areas: decarbonisation; adaptation and resilience; biodiversity; climate education and green careers.
STEM Ambassadors are inspiring volunteer role models who give their time and enthusiasm for free to bring STEM subjects to life, demonstrate the value of STEM to society and illuminate the incredible career pathways open to young people. They share their everyday experiences in STEM and show young people that they can (and should) aspire to a rewarding and successful STEM career.
The talent pipeline and skills base for Engineering Biology developments of the future need role models like all the STEM focused industrial strategy areas for the greater good. We need a new generation to maintain the UK as a significant innovator and developer of disruptive innovation for global sustainability. STEM Ambassadors from Engineering Biology and other STEM sectors are part of the solution.
The BIA report highlights this bio-revolution enabling the UK to engineer biology for the greater good, in healthcare, energy production (ie biofuels), sustainable materials and food production to name a few. The call to arms to SMEs, larger employers and to the researchers within our cutting-edge universities, is join the mission to a more sustainable world, which starts by helping to inspire a new generation through STEM and Climate Ambassadors!