Plastic-hungry enzymes, cyanide-scoffing microbes! The stuff of plasticky sci-fi coming to a plant near you!
This is the world of #bioremediation, peopled by data scientists, chemists, engineers, environmentalists and even geologists. No longer niche, with important applications across the plastics, textiles and mining industries, bioremediation is the science ~ and art ~ of using microorganisms and their enzymes to breakdown pollutants and 'forever' chemicals.
CARBIOS, a French biotech and Epoch Biodesign, a UK biotech are developing unconventional biotechnology-based plastic recycling technologies to 'power plastic and textile circularity' ~ inventing ways of recycling the 350m tonnes of plastic we produce every year. A mere 10% is recycled. A lot of it ends up in the ocean, creating enormous 'oceanfills' such as the 80,000 tonnes that make up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ~ an area as big as Texas or thrice the size of France.
The enzymes, or 'nanoscale biomachines', they use are tailormade to serve very specific functions. And that's where it gets even more fascinating. To figure out which enzymes, out of thousands, have the structure and therefore the power to transform complex plastics, scientists have turned to AI.
Allozymes, a Singaporean biotech, maintains the world's largest enzyme data library. The 'Google of enzymes', it's a rich source of data for machine learning and designing bioremediation strategies. According to CEO Peyman Salehian (Ph.D.) it 'screens more than 20 million enzyme variants per day.' Using AI-enabled data analysis tools, its scientists have analyzed large databases of protein sequences and structures to identify promising candidates for bioremediation while machine learning algorithms refine, select and create (by mimicking enzyme candidates with the right structural features) new ones. A process that, without the help of AI, would have taken years and thousands of man-hours.
With #AI applications significantly accelerating the discovery and development of new bioremediation technologies, the sector could grow by over $8 billion by 2028. What will it take to develop these technologies at scale and to make a remarkable dent in plastic population especially in poor countries most blighted by this curse?
Concerted global effort for sure.
But also local and regional efforts, strong nudges to 'patient' private and public capital, investments in education and R&D. This last is especially important: sustainable investments in strategies to end plastic pollution will require significant local effort. Poor countries can't be waiting for pollution-busting technologies to trickle down to them from richer nations.
They'll have to start working on their own solutions ~ and before that, their own education.
#plastic #pollution #biotech
JJEC
