Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation

Background. Mounting evidence indicates that our planet might experience runaway effects associated to rising temperatures and ecosystem overexploitation, leading to catastrophic shifts on short time scales. Remediation scenarios capable of counterbalancing these effects involve geoengineering, sust...

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Authors: Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-, Montañez, Raúl, Duran Nebreda, Salvador, 1987-
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2015
Country:España
Institution:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repository:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/25354
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/25354
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13062-015-0064-7
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Biologia sintètica
Canvis climàtics
Synthetic biology
Ecological engineering
Climate change
Catastrophic shifts
Mutualism
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spelling Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformationSolé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-Montañez, RaúlDuran Nebreda, Salvador, 1987-Biologia sintèticaCanvis climàticsSynthetic biologyEcological engineeringClimate changeCatastrophic shiftsMutualismBackground. Mounting evidence indicates that our planet might experience runaway effects associated to rising temperatures and ecosystem overexploitation, leading to catastrophic shifts on short time scales. Remediation scenarios capable of counterbalancing these effects involve geoengineering, sustainable practices and carbon sequestration, among others. None of these scenarios seems powerful enough to achieve the desired restoration of safe boundaries./nPresentation of the hypothesis. We hypothesize that synthetic organisms with the appropriate engineering design could be used to safely prevent declines in some stressed ecosystems and help improving carbon sequestration. Such schemes would include engineering mutualistic dependencies preventing undesired evolutionary processes. We hypothesize that some particular design principles introduce unescapable constraints to the engineered organisms that act as effective firewalls./nTesting the hypothesis. Testing this designed organisms can be achieved by using controlled bioreactor models, with single and heterogeneous populations, and accurate computational models including different scales (from genetic constructs and metabolic pathways to population dynamics)./nImplications of the hypothesis. Our hypothesis heads towards a future anthropogenic action that should effectively act as Terraforming processes. It also implies a major challenge in the existing biosafety policies, since we suggest release of modified organisms as potentially necessary strategy for success./nReviewers. This article was reviewed by This article was reviewed by Eugene V. Koonin, Tom Ellis (nominated by Purificación Lopez-Garcia) and Eörs Szathmary.This study was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant Number 294294 from the EU seventh framework program (SYNCOM), the Botin Foundation, by Banco Santander through its Santander Universities Global Division and by the Santa Fe Institute, where most of the work was done.BioMed Central201520152015info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/25354http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13062-015-0064-7reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunyainstname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)InglésBiology Direct. 2015;10:37info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/294294© 2015 Sole et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:recercat.cat:10230/253542026-05-29T05:05:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
title Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
spellingShingle Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-
Biologia sintètica
Canvis climàtics
Synthetic biology
Ecological engineering
Climate change
Catastrophic shifts
Mutualism
title_short Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
title_full Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
title_fullStr Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
title_full_unstemmed Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
title_sort Synthetic circuit designs for earth terraformation
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-
Montañez, Raúl
Duran Nebreda, Salvador, 1987-
author Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-
author_facet Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-
Montañez, Raúl
Duran Nebreda, Salvador, 1987-
author_role author
author2 Montañez, Raúl
Duran Nebreda, Salvador, 1987-
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Biologia sintètica
Canvis climàtics
Synthetic biology
Ecological engineering
Climate change
Catastrophic shifts
Mutualism
topic Biologia sintètica
Canvis climàtics
Synthetic biology
Ecological engineering
Climate change
Catastrophic shifts
Mutualism
description Background. Mounting evidence indicates that our planet might experience runaway effects associated to rising temperatures and ecosystem overexploitation, leading to catastrophic shifts on short time scales. Remediation scenarios capable of counterbalancing these effects involve geoengineering, sustainable practices and carbon sequestration, among others. None of these scenarios seems powerful enough to achieve the desired restoration of safe boundaries./nPresentation of the hypothesis. We hypothesize that synthetic organisms with the appropriate engineering design could be used to safely prevent declines in some stressed ecosystems and help improving carbon sequestration. Such schemes would include engineering mutualistic dependencies preventing undesired evolutionary processes. We hypothesize that some particular design principles introduce unescapable constraints to the engineered organisms that act as effective firewalls./nTesting the hypothesis. Testing this designed organisms can be achieved by using controlled bioreactor models, with single and heterogeneous populations, and accurate computational models including different scales (from genetic constructs and metabolic pathways to population dynamics)./nImplications of the hypothesis. Our hypothesis heads towards a future anthropogenic action that should effectively act as Terraforming processes. It also implies a major challenge in the existing biosafety policies, since we suggest release of modified organisms as potentially necessary strategy for success./nReviewers. This article was reviewed by This article was reviewed by Eugene V. Koonin, Tom Ellis (nominated by Purificación Lopez-Garcia) and Eörs Szathmary.
publishDate 2015
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2015
2015
2015
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/25354
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13062-015-0064-7
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/25354
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13062-015-0064-7
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Biology Direct. 2015;10:37
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/294294
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv BioMed Central
publisher.none.fl_str_mv BioMed Central
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
instname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
instname_str Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
reponame_str Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
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