New Bioengineering Technologies: a Way of Replacing Traditional Practices

Peak natural resources are decreasing in quantity and the global climate is warming partially due to greenhouse gas emissionsBioengineering offers methods of limiting the need for hard to obtain natural resources, in manners that are also more sustainable and better for the environment. Such practices are also economically viable, as it has become a strong selling point to be a “green” product or facility. Bioengineering of GMOs offers cheap and low maintenance methods of environmental clean up, as well as agricultural and industrial feedstock production. Biorefineries, utilizing bioreactors, and separators will replace traditional manufacturing methods by being cleaner, more efficient, and cheaper. Medical advancements in tissue synthesis and other technologies will provide advanced insight into disease and treatment. The pros of bioengineering are numerous and the challenge is whether or not corporations and governments are willing to invest in research to make cheap and clean bioproduction a reality.

Many consider manipulating life a superpower. However, people of diverse backgrounds have applied this superpower across the globe. Beginning in western Europe and the middle eastwith soil erosion (Andre Evette et al., 2009)and crop cultivation(Zeder, 2008), bioengineering is engrained in human history.Today, bioengineers are wielding this superpower to harness life in ways that benefit means of production, human healthcare, and the environment.

Bioengineering involves the use of natural or artificial products and organisms in medical and industrial settings. Applications from such engineering are broad, with socioeconomic and political implicates at every turn. It is estimated that bioengineering technology (biotechnology) has the potential to be a multibillion dollar industry (Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). Today many things are already bioengineered, from environmentally friendly inks, compostable bags, and coffee cups made of paper that are still strong and water resistant. There is technology that borrows directly from nature. Fabrics that mimic the surface of a lotus leaf to create water, ice, microbe, and dustproof fabrics (Wu, Zheng, & Wu, 2005). Depending on the field, the ethics involved with bioengineering are variable. In the environment, bioengineering provides means of reducing environmental toxins, and natural methods of water containment. With manufacturing, the ethical issues are minimal, as nearly all applications aim to create more efficient and less polluting means of production(Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). In healthcare, biotechnology offers new methods of diagnosing and researching diseases and disorders, and provides the materials to safely repair or replace living tissues(Bhat & Kumar, 2013). The cons to bioengineering are the risk of environmental alienation with runaway reactions, or that manipulations to products could have adverse affects to humans and other organisms(Obidimma C. Ezezika & Peter A. Singer, 2010). This article aims to address the immense number of positive implications of Bioengineering within the environment, manufacturing, and healthcare.

The condition of Earth is fragile. Centuries of exploitation have left many areas barren compared to what they once were. Technological advancements have been made to better harness the resources in the environment, without returning something in exchange. The byproducts of these advancements leave destruction and a climate that threatens to destroy the current way of life. Carbon dioxide levels have increase by over 135 % since the before the industrial revolution, eclipsing the normal fluctuation levels expected (Richard Alley et al., 2007). The level of waste on land and at sea continues to rise. Thermoplastic production exceeds 100 million tons per year, with approximately 50 million tons being discarded within two years of production(Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). Coal and nuclear power plants churn out an estimated 400,000 and 405 tons of waste respectively per year per 1000 MWe power plant(World Nuclear Association, 2015). The production of energy and petroleum based products are major contributors of green house gases as well as contaminants entering the environment during production and in waste disposal sites.The greenhouse gases produced through these processes are also leading to rising water levels which threaten over 650 million people and dozens of countries (Thomas Dietz & Deborah Balk, 2007). Bioengineering provides a powerful tool to answer the challenges of cleaning up toxic wastes, averting disastrous flooding, and cutting our global consumption. Toxic wastes are the food sources for some extreme organisms, and if handled properly, these organisms could be used beneficially. Using old and new biotechnology, flooding defenses can be built to safeguard some of the world’s largest cities and hundreds of millions of people. Finally, bioreactors offer a way to biologically mass-produce plastics, especially plastics that are biodegradable or reusable.

Exploitation and refinement of natural resources is for the most part never 100% efficient. The waste produced often ends up contaminating nearby environments such as lakes, forests(Reece, 2011), oceans(Ingleton, 2015), and homes of local communities(Shilu Tong, Yasmin E. von Schirnding, & Tippawan Prapamontol, 2000). There have been organisms found in nature that feed on some of these toxins. These primary candidates serve as the basis for further bioengineering of optimally modified organisms for toxin clean up. The optimal organism would be one requiring little space, or nutrients to reproduce, and have a high metabolic rate. These organisms would also need to be engineered in some way as to avert their permanent entrance into the local milieu.

The bases for this method of toxin cleanup is finding organisms that have already adapted to using oils, radioactive isotopes, and plastics as food sources and then genetically modifying them to perform this function at a more rapid and efficient rate (Obidimma C. Ezezika & Peter A. Singer, 2010). These GMOs can then be deployed in timely and cheap manners that also require minimal oversight and operating costs.

For oil spills, organisms living in the oceans have been found to naturally feed on the oil that seeps into the ocean from the sea floor everyday. However these organisms do not eat the oil as rapidly as governments and environmentalists would like, and sometimes have unfavorable byproducts (Obidimma C. Ezezika & Peter A. Singer, 2010). Genetically modifying these organisms would provide redid metabolisms, as well as assurance than any waste product is environmentally benign (Brooijmans, Pastink, & Siezen, 2009).

Non-renewable power sources all produce some sort of waste. Coal-fired power plants being the largest producer of waste, producing on average per plant, 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. To make matters worse, in the U.S. at least 42 percent of coal combustion, waste ponds and landfills are unlined, contaminating aquifers and local water sources (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012). Nuclear power plants, produce, worldwide, about 200,000 m3 of low­ and intermediate level radioactive waste, and about 10,000 m3 of high-level waste including used fuel designated as waste. Contrasting to coal power plant waste, nuclear waste is stored and regulated in a highly controlled manner, and is incorporated into the cost of the utility, however with time, these storage sites and the mining site can become contaminated or leak. Organisms could be engineered to reduce the amount waste produced by coal-fired plants, or the carbon dioxide produced, could be diverted to a bioreactor where it can be used as a feedstock in organic molecule production. For nuclear waste, organisms have been found to utilize the decay process to live deep underground. If these organisms could also produce a less radioactive isotope, this could be a long term solution for most storage site (Nicolle Rager Fuller, 2015).

Lastly, waste produced by everyday life unless fully recycled will end up in landfills. Most of that waste is not readily biodegradable and those that do degrade do not always degrade into substances that are environmentally benign. The majority of this waste is plastic, now ubiquitous with modern life, the material is very solid and does not breakdown easily. When it does, gases can be released, organisms can eat it, or can be trapped within its rigid confines. A solution, aside from producing PLA and PHA plastics as mentioned in the paper, is to use organisms to degrade and eat this plastic. If properly engineered these organisms would not pose a threat to the environment and can be easily controlled (Yang, Yang, Wu, Zhao, & Jiang, 2014). Away from plastics, human biowaste is also a major issue, and a very energy hungry process. Bioengineering of specific systems using

The oldest of all bioengineering fields, erosion control using plants and natural barriers has existed for centuries. Remnants of early projects can still be found in Western Europe and in the Middle East. Traditional methods of erosion control, or water containment,involve strategic planting of trees and other growth to promote soil stability, while more modern methods incorporate plant, chemical, and mechanical methods(A. Evette et al., 2009). These modern methods enhance the growth, and allow for a higher diversity of plants being used, which enhances the ecosystem.

In treating wastewater, using local ecosystems, or favorable organisms such as algae offer means of reducing the overall energy input to waste water treatment. Such is the case with algae, the populations are very easy to grow, and the cycle provides a feedstock for the algae and the beginning, and biofuel production and then end. This is the case at an Alabama water treatment facility, that ran demo program using local algae strains to clean wastewater. The result was a carbon negative cycle, that required little energy input, and produced clean drinking water, and algae to make products out of (Tina Casey, 2014).

Previous generation plastic bags were the byproduct of petroleum refinement. Offering, light, strong, and cheap means of carrying goods, the product became a staple of any business by the 1960s (SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, 2015). Similar to plastic bags, thermoplastics, foams, adhesives, and many coatings are all also sourced from petroleum. Petroleum based products account for 5-10% of worldwidepetroleum use, and is a $310 billion industry in the U.S alone. There are a number of issues associated with petroleum-based plastics. Petroleum is becoming a finite resource, the final products are not degradable,there are potential links with diseases, and the waste that enters the environment harms wildlife making alternatives both economically and environmentally appealing (Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). For example, just 7% of plastic bags made it to recycling plants in the early 2000s, leaving the rest to take up space in landfills, and be mistakenly eaten by organisms that are eventually eaten by humans(Ed Weisberg, 2006). Solutions forreplacing one-time use plastic bags, and other petroleum based thermoplastics come from the bioengineering of natural and renewable pathways in biorefineries, offering conventional supply chain compatible processes that can benefit all aspects of the supply chain.

In a biorefinery, large amount of feedstock are added and the process produces the bio plastic, Polylactic Acid (PLA), through fermentation and refining. Bioreactors, are most efficient if placed near the feedstock source, and do not disrupt the supply chain of plastics for the consumers until the item has reach the end of its productive life. The PLA can be left to compost, or potentially burning of these bio plastics to regain some of the energy used to make them. The United States, according to the Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), could feasibly produce 1 billion dry tons of biomass, offsetting 30% of petroleum consumption by the year 2030 (Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007b).

Currently manufacturing and processing uses many physical and mechanical steps. These methods are inherently inefficient, leading to high costs for containment and cleanup (Michael E Porter & Claas Van der Linde, 1995). If these processes were to be reengineered utilizing renewable feedstock, efficient pathways, and functional products the idea of manufacturing will be remade. This is the idea of Bio-manufacturing. Bio-manufacturing is subset of bioengineering and incorporates both living and non-living methods of using organic compounds and substrates to produce functional everyday products such as plastics or drugs(Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). Although energy production is beyond the scope of enzymatic production, it is possible to utilize the byproducts of energy production.

Three methods of bio-production include, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), bioreactors, and bioseparators. Each serves a different purpose, but can also work together in a larger system known as a biorefinery. GMOs, such as silk worms engineered toproduce spider’s silk (Elizabeth Howell, 2014), are able to produce raw materials and in a bioreactor, enzymes take the substrate and refine it into a useable product. After the bioreactor has made the product, bioseparators clear away unwanted byproducts leaving just the product. This system can be altered to accommodate different substrate sources and bioreactors, and do not always need enzymes.The most common and most promising of these refining pathways is that for making replacements for thermoplastics, and is described below.

In PLA production, the feedstock is added and the reactor’s conditions and processes form the product. In other bioreactors, the process is truly live. The current process uses naturally occurring enzymes to take the feedstock or substrate and produce Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). PHA is a naturally occurring molecule that bacteria utilize in energy storage, however PHA polymers have thermoplastic properties, making them very attractive for commercial purposes (Hansson et al., 2015). Currently, PHA and PLA reactors are limited to low-volume, high-value (LVHV) products such as pharmaceuticals. Further engineering of the organisms and the process will allow for the production of high-volume, low-value products (HVLV), and eventually photosynthetic based reactors require no substrate. These developments, along with methods of reducing biological waste, and dependence on intensively cultivated food crops, will drastically reduce the environmental impact of these processes (Dianne Ahmann & John R. Dorgan, 2007a). With these improvements, Bio-manufacturing will become a more efficient and cost effective manner of production, benefiting the environment as well as businesses.

Today, biomanufacturing is a small yet rapidly growing field with multinational corporations beginning to invest in the technology. Currently, pharmaceutical companies use biomanufacturing the most to produce LVHV products. As technology develops, and genetic engineering techniques improve, the production of HVLV products such as plastics and fuels will become a reality(Guochen Du, Lilian X. L. Chen, & Jian Yu, 2004). The limiting factors are only investment, and time.

The applications of bioengineering are vast;plastic, cosmetics, fuels, fine chemistry, blood, hormones, food, and more are all possible (Octave & Thomas, 2009). As previously stated, the possibilities, and feasibility of such production hinges on investment and invention within the field of bioengineering to optimize and quantize biorefining. It is conceivable that biological products will power entire supply chains, and be carbon neutral or carbon free

Technology is now embedded into nearly all aspects of medicine, however the new frontier is making technology more analogous and compatible to living tissue. Bioengineering within healthcare is Biomedical Engineering, and takes on a newdefinition. To sum up the words of Bhat& Kumar, Biomedical Engineering can be definedas any instrument or material that is intended for introduction into or interaction with living tissue especially as part of a medical device or implant, that does not require chemical activation or metabolism to be effective, nor causes undesired interaction with the host tissue(Bhat & Kumar, 2013). This definition excludes pharmaceuticals, while including imagining and diagnostic technologies that are crucial in the modern understanding of medicine.It is also worth noting that outside of the procedural uses of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals are indeed a beneficiary of bioengineering. While still incorporating this definition, Bioengineering relies heavily on being able to manipulate and work off of what nature already presents,resulting in inventions working with and as our bodies.

Medical professionals have many new tools at their disposal in diagnosing and treating diseases. When admitting a patient, the hospital bedroom is equipped with monitors that are connected to every part of the body that is regarded as fundamental to sustaining life. Diagnosing of patients is no longer the task of one doctor. Instead radiologists, and the appropriate specialists pour over the data turned out by diagnostic imaging machines. MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) have been designed to take advantage of magnetic alignment of atoms within the body to provide a sharp image without radiation exposure, PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography) can reveal metabolic processes, and heart monitors can reveal signs of stoke or a heart attack(Grumet, 1993).

Technologies such as stents, catheters, and other implantable devices may be engineered in such was as they are capable to long-term drug release while in the body. Or tools used in a surgery such as the stitching or the scaffolding can be made to be taken up or used by the body rather than needing to be removed or cause issues in the future. Engineers are also capable of producing much lighter, to real weight, bone replacements that are also as strong or stronger than bone(Bhat & Kumar, 2013). However, the true futuristic side of medicine is also within reach. Nano technology is capable or drastically changing how disease is treated and even how often humans would need to go into a healthcare setting. Nanobots could potentially work along side white blood cells in monitoring the body and systematically attacking and fixing any broken pieces (Roco, 2003).

However, treating the patient is still very much a human task, although heavily aided my engineering in some cases. The equipment used is almost numberless, and all of it has been designed sterile and precise. Biomedical engineers are now faced with the challenge of reducing waste in healthcare in order to protect bottom lines and to also protect the environment. Using PLA and PHA is one just method, however further testing and engineering is required to bring the plastic up to the standards used in the medical setting (Bhat & Kumar, 2013). Since the bioengineering and controlled replication of a patient’s cells is now possible, self-donating transplants are a future possibility. This eliminates the challenges posed by transplants as the host body does not accept the foreign tissue and the body begins to attack that tissue, known as Graft versus Host disease (Griffith & Naughton, 2002).

Lastly, materials that are less foreign to the host, and those that have antibacterial applications built into them offer superior means of preventing infection and implantation failure. There is also the application of building in sensors to normal machinery plastic that could monitor and even regulate the pathogens going in and out.

This report has explored many of the old and new bioengineering technologies that offer environmentally, economically, and human friendly way of replacing traditional practices. The potential impact for many of these technologies is great, and could have life saving consequences, should they be used correctly. In the right hands, and with proper research, many of the cons to bioengineering can be dispelled, and the benefits of such technologies vastly outweigh the potential negative scenarios. The only challenge remaining is the necessary funding, and time needed to perfect the new technologies.