Biodesign Research to Advance the Principles and Applications of Biosystems Design
Year: 2019
Type: editorial
Abstract: Over the course of civilization, humans have increasingly expanded their freedom to live a better life. In comparison with the primitive society, our modern society has many more choices of life-supporting resources, such as year-round food supply, permanent shelters, diverse energy sources, and effective preventive and curing medicine. However, our society is currently still heavily relying on the resources provided by Mother Nature, which cannot meet the future global needs in terms of both quantity and quality under the pressure of population growth, natural resource reduction, and environmental deterioration. For example, the food sources originating from plants, animals, or microbes do not have the nutrition balance for optimal human health. Climate change and environmental deterioration threaten the food security. Increasingly, infectious diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS), genetic diseases (e.g., cancer), and improper lifestyle-related disorders (e.g., obesity) become more prevalent and remain challenging to be prevented, controlled, and cured. Conventional medical technologies and modern medicine development are also meeting the ceiling. Antibiotic resistance is threatening the health of humans, animals, and environment. As the human lifespan continues to increase, aging-related diseases, disorders, and poor life quality are becoming global challenges. Plants, animals, and microbes in nature have evolved as part of our Earth ecosystem, not for benefiting humans. Even though humans have put forth tremendous efforts to domesticate plants, animals, and microbes based on random/induced mutations, hybridization, and limited genetic modifications via biological engineering, the improved food and industrial crop plants, animals, and microbial strains are still far from optimized for meeting the human needs. In other words, natural evolution and domestication in plants, animals, and microbes are tinkering processes and therefore cannot meet the ever-exploding population on the one hand and the unending appetite for living better quality life on the other. One promising strategy for solving these global challenges is to employ revolutionary biosystems design (also called biodesign), which is defined as predictable modification of existing organisms or creation of new organisms using rational engineering or automated design based on the theory and principles of biosystems design.
Source: BioDesign Research
Institutions: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Stanford University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universitat de València, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Université Paris-Saclay, University of Warwick, Institute for Integrative Systems Biology, Université d'Évry Val-d'Essonne, Nanjing Agricultural University, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,500
Funders: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, Battelle, Li Ka Shing Foundation, UT-Battelle, Office of Science, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Biological and Environmental Research, Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Awards: G1026679911, G121915436, G1645119126, G166562317, G203625172, G2988778103, G3121793570, G313676650, Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre, EVO-ENGINE: A directed evolution engine for engineering proteins and logic gates, G4122777843, G4423657506, G450780475, G4661815001, G5726405315, G625002215, G675320460, G7451498042, G8269158468, G834413596, G8906985441, G8943143067
OpenAlex ID: W2991378888