Publication Date: February 2024 | Originally published in Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining.
A strategy to develop agriculture and food production waste into biomanufacturing feedstocks that leverages existing, local waste streams; engineering biology; broad stakeholder collaboration; and federal coordination.
Citation: Ni, C. and Friedman, D.C. (2024), Transforming trash: strategies to develop waste into a feedstock for a circular bioeconomy. Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. https://doi.org/10.1002/bbb.2586
Keywords: engineering biology, synthetic biology, industrial biotechnology, agriculture, food, environment, energy, biotechnology, bioeconomy, climate, sustainability, mitigation, adaptation, resilience, materials, transportation, greenhouse gases, pollution, conservation.
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Mary Tomagan is currently the Senior Administrator at EBRC, providing operation support and event planning. Prior to her position at EBRC, Mary was the Business Office and Operations Coordinator at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and a Membership Program Manager at the American Academy of Ophthalmology. She is a soccer and baseball mom of two very active boys and a foodie.
Dr Blaby received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, as a Medical Research Council (MRC) fellowship recipient. After post-doctoral positions at the University of Florida and UCLA (supported by an NIH fellowship), he co-led a DOE Science Focus Area centered on functional genomics of phototrophs at Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY. Since 2019 he heads the DNA synthesis platform at the Joint Genome Institute, where he leads three groups focused on HTP DNA design and assembly, strain engineering and bioinformatic tool development/data analysis.
CB Gurumurthy (Guru), BVSC, MVSC, PHD, Exec MBA is the Director of Mouse Genome Engineering Core Facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, Nebraska and he is also a professor in the department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy. He develops and improves mouse genome editing technologies. In collaboration with Dr Masato Ohtsuka, Tokai University, Japan, he has published several landmark papers on CRISPR genome engineering technologies. Two of their breakthrough technologies, Easi-CRISPR and i-GONAD, are now widely adapted at core facilities and laboratories. Several hundreds to thousands of mouse models are generated each year using their methods. Guru has received over 100 invitations within USA and over 20 invitations from 12 countries to deliver keynote talks or presentations, to organize workshops and to chair sessions at conferences. He is one of the six researchers to receive inaugural Outstanding Genomic Innovator award from the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Nils is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida (UF). Before joining UF, Nils was a Research Engineer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University and an Associate Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Space Science and Astrobiology Division. Nils holds a PhD in Metabolic Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia and an engineer’s degree in Biochemical Engineering from the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany.
Nils’ research comprises the rational engineering of microbial metabolism to increase the carbon efficiency of biochemical pathways for the assimilation of single-carbon compounds and the conversion thereof into advanced biomaterials. This serves the overarching goal to create a sustainable chemical industry on Earth “on the way” to new frontiers: developing circular production platforms based on microbial biotechnology could one day also support crewed long-duration space-exploration missions and -settlement.
The UK Science and Innovation Network is holding an in-person reception at 4:30pm ET on May 15 at Georgia Tech ahead of the EBRC Annual Meeting. Recognizing the critical need for international collaboration in harnessing engineering biology to address global challenges, and with clear overlapping areas of focus set out by both countries in the 2022 US Bioeconomy Executive Order and 2023 UK National Vision for Engineering Biology, this event aims to explore avenues to deepen the collaborative ties between both countries.
We invite all Annual Meeting participants to attend this event! Please register by May 6, 2024.
The reception will feature panel discussions on key challenges for engineering biology, with representation from the US and UK, and will conclude with informal networking to celebrate the power of cooperation in engineering biology. An agenda and additional programmatic information will be available soon.
Please reach out to Garrett Dunlap at garrett.dunlap@fcdo.gov.uk with any questions.
Publication Date: February 2024 | Originally published in npj Climate Action.
A companion piece to Engineering Biology for Climate & Sustainability: A Research Roadmap for a Cleaner Future, this publication features discussion of engineering biology research and development opportunities to impact climate change and long-term environmental sustainability, including why and how engineering biology and subsequent biotechnologies should be among the most prominent of approaches to overcoming the climate crisis. This publication also helps to contextualize the roadmap and advancement in engineering biology with broader policy, investment, and social considerations.
This project aims to improve DNA synthesis screening by enabling the development of better tools and mechanisms for screening performance evaluation.
A companion piece to EBRC’s 2022 roadmap, Engineering Biology for Climate & Sustainability. Published in npj Climate Action.
Aditya Pandharinath Sarnaik is an Associate Research Professional in the School for Sustainable Engineering and Built Environment (SSEBE) at Arizona State University (Polytechnic campus). He works at Arizona Centre for Algal Technology and Innovation (AzCATI). He is a Biotechnology graduate and a trained biochemical engineer, with expertise in bacterial (photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic) metabolic and protein engineering. He has experience with upstream as well as downstream processing/ process optimization of (engineered and wild-type) cyanobacteria at pilot scale.
Tiara is Biotechnology enthusiast. Loving the world with collaboration in science, content creator, leadership in community, moderator event, and science communicator. My interests are about Biomedical informatics, genetic for disease, cancer genomics and precision oncology such as biomarkers. I have a sharing platform on @ngolabs for expand my network and get out more knowledge. Now, I’m being student research in National Research and Innovation Agency for handling Biomarker of HPV.
Anna Duraj-Thatte received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, wherein she worked on protein engineering and directed evolution. Then she pursued her postdoctoral research at Wyss Institute, Harvard University. Dr. Duraj-Thatte’s research focuses on designing and developing novel strategies to produce smart engineered living materials (ELMs) by integrating the fields of synthetic biology, materials engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence (AI). Over the last eight years, she has been developing the field of ELMs by demonstrating one of the first examples of therapeutic living materials and macroscopic transient self-regenerating
materials for environmental applications. Her research work has also been featured in global media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, New Scientist, CBS Boston, and Science Alert. She received the Grand Prize in the American National Science Foundation (NSF) Idea Machine competition. She was also selected as a Deep Tech Pioneer and member of Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Incubation Program.