Biotechnology and the Environment

1. Biotechnology and the Environment

2. Environment – describes everything that surrounds a particular organism • Soil, air, water • Other organisms • Temperature, humidity, radiation

3. Environmental Biotechnology - the development, use and regulation of biological systems for remediation of contaminated environments (land, air, water), and for environment-friendly processes. Bioremediation - the use of microorganisms to remedy environmental problems

4. Events • What are the events that triggered the interest in environmental biotechnology? • Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring (DTT) • In the 1960s, rain distributed 40 tons of DDT each year on England alone-incorporated in the food chain and it has a 20 year life span. • Love Canal • Burning of a River • Exxon Valdez in 1989

5. What do they all have in common? • The advent of the Industrial Revolution • increase in products and waste • people moved to the city • increase in human population

6. Regulations were passed: • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976) • Must identify hazardous waste and establish standards for managing it properly • Requires companies that store, treat or dispose to have permits stating how the wastes are to be managed • Record of its travels: Chain of Custody • EPA initiates the Superfund Program (1980) ~Counteract careless and negligent practices • Environmental Genome Project ~Study and understand the impacts of environmental chemicals on human diseases

7. Waste • Solid: landfills, combustion-including waste-to energy plants, recovery • Dumping, slurries, open burning • Liquid: septic: sewage treatment, deep-well injection • Gas: fossil fuels, chlorofluorocarbons • Hazardous –anything that can explode, catch fire, release toxic fumes, and particles or cause corrosion

8. Banana Peel Wood Scrap/Sawdust Wax Paper Styrofoam Cup Tin Can Aluminum Soda Can Plastic Carton Glass Bottles 0.5 Years 4 Years 5 Years 20 Years 100 Years 500 Years 500 Years >500 Years Garbage Test

9. There is no waste in Nature: • From rocks and soil to plants and animals to air and water and back again: Recycled largely by Microbes

10. Biogeochemical Cycles are a major part of the recycling process • Carbon Cycle: The primary biogeochemical cycle organic cmpds  CO2 and back • Nitrogen Cycle: proteins amino acids NH3NO2-NO3-NO2-N2ON2 NH3 etc_ • Sulfur Cycle: Just like the nitrogen cycle, numerous oxidation states. Modeled in the Winogradsky column • Phosphorous Cycle: Doesn’t cycle between numerous oxidation states only soluble and insoluble form

11. Carbon Cycle CO2 Organic compounds

12. Nitrogen Cycle cyanobacteria N2 leguminous decomposition Fixation ammonification NH3 NO2- nitrosomas Nitrification Pseudomonas Bacillus Paracoccus NO2- Denitrification nitrobacter NO3-

13. Sulfur Cycle Atmosphere SO2 H2SO4 Organic sulfur S SO4 H2S

14. Phosphorous Cycle Phosphates too complex for plants to absorb from the soil Sea simple Phosphates Phosphate rocks Microbes Breakdown complex compounds

15. Scientists Learn from Nature: 1980s • The concept of Gaia –the total world is a living organism and what nature makes nature can degrade (bioinfalibility); only man makes xenobiotic compounds • Clean up pollution-short and long term solutions (cost, toxicity, time frame) • Use compounds that are biodegradable • Produce Energy and Materials in less destructive ways • Monitor Environmental Health • Increase Recovery of Minerals and Oil

16. Bioremediation finds it’s place • Companies begin to specialize in cleaning up toxic waste spills by using a mixture of bacteria and fungi because cleaning these spills usually requires the combined efforts of several strains. • Biotechnologists begin engineering “super bugs” to clean up wastes. • However, there are many microorganisms in nature that will degrade waste products.

22. Example: Na + Cl2 NaCl reduced 0 0 +1 -1 oxidized

25. The Players: Metabolizing Microbes • Site usually contains a variety of microbes (review figure 9.5) • Closest to the contaminant: anaerobes • Farthest away: aerobes • The most common and effective bacteria are the indigenous microbes (e.g. Pseudomonas in soil) • Fungus and algae are also present in the environment and do a good job of “cleaning up” chemicals (fungi do it better than bacteria)

34. Environmental Diagnostics • A promising new area of research involves using living organisms to detect and assess harmful levels of toxic chemicals.

35. Daphnia magna Branched Antennae Compound Eye Transparent Thorax and Abdomen

36. When healthy Daphnia are fed a sugar substrate (-galactoside attached to a fluorescent marker), they metabolize the sugar and fluoresce under UV light. When Daphnia are stressed by toxins, they do not have the enzymatic ability to digest the sugar and therefore do not fluoresce under UV light.

37. Toxicity reduction involves adding chemicals to hazardous waste in order to diminish the toxicity. • For example, if the toxicity results from heavy metals, EDTA will be added to the waste and the effluent will be tested again to determine if the toxicity has been acceptably reduced. • EDTA chelates (binds to) metals, thereby making them unavailable to harm organisms in a particular body of water.

42. Careers in Environmental Biotech • Biodegradation • Wastewater treatment plants, organic farming • Bioremediation • Environmental clean-up companies, labs developing super bugs • Biocatalysis • Plastics, degradable and recyclable products • Other • Mining companies, oil companies