Cyanobacteria engineering for restoring environments (CYBER)

Pollution is one of the most pressing global challenges of today, threatening our ecosystems, health, and wellbeing. Traditional approaches to environmental clean-up often fall short due to the complexity of deploying them at scale into natural environments. There is an urgent need to rethink our strategy. This project aims to harness the potential of cyanobacteria - one of the oldest and most diverse organisms on Earth - to unlock new approaches. Cyanobacteria are ubiquitous in many environments and play a crucial role in basic ecosystem services due to their ability to fix nitrogen and perform photosynthesis. But despite a growing interest in the use of cyanobacteria for bioremediation, we currently lack reliable biological parts and experimental tools to safely reprogram cyanobacteria for this task. In this project we propose a multidisciplinary effort to overcome these hurdles and make engineered cyanobacteria a feasible platform for restoration of degraded environments.

To archive this, our project is built around four specific objectives. First, we will aim to construct what we term "ecological wind tunnels". These artificial ecosystems that we can build in the lab, better mimic the complex spatial-temporal organization and interactions found in the real world. By subjecting engineered organisms to these more realistic conditions, we can enhance their functionality, have greater confidence in their ability to perform in natural environments, and evaluate their ecological impact more accurately than in a typical lab setting. Second, we will use massively parallel assays and sequencing-based surveillance techniques, combined with rigorous measurements and advanced artificial intelligence, to facilitate the rapid development of biological tools for reprogramming cyanobacteria. Third, to ensure the traceability of our engineered cells in natural environments and facilitate their safe deployment, we will develop approaches to "barcode" our organisms. This will enable us to better track their dispersal and establish ownership of the organisms in commercial contexts. Finally, as a case study, we will engineer cyanobacteria that are able to naturally absorb various pollutants from the environment and alter their biology to simplify their physical removal from the environment. This ability to remove our engineered biology in a targeted way will help to reduce any long-term impact our cells have on a natural ecosystem by allowing them to only be present temporarily and not provide sufficient time for them to become embedded.

In addition to the science, we also recognise the crucial role of early engagement with society and policy makers around the acceptable use of this technology as it is developed. We have therefore partnered with a range of leading academics, companies, non-profit organisations, and funders to build a community and will hold inclusive events that connect our science to wider society and decision makers in government. We aim to use this point of interaction to understand concerns, communicate evidence-based risks and benefits regarding the science, and explore possible routes towards the acceptable use of engineered biology in environmental contexts.

Together, the science and engagement performed in this project will help revolutionize pollution control strategies and kick-start new sustainable bio-based solutions to environmental restoration. It will also develop the crucial foundational tools and methods needed to de-risk the deployment of engineered biology into real-world ecosystems and help to establish cyanobacteria as a versatile and safe platform for tackling diverse environmental challenges.

Pollution is a major global challenge whose severe impact has been compounded by the current climate crisis. Standard approaches to clean-up are often ill-suited and ineffective given the complexity and difficulty of accessing the natural environments that are affected. Consequently, there is a critical need to rethink our approach.

We propose to harness nature itself by modifying the capabilities of cyanobacteria - some of the oldest and most diverse organisms on Earth - to unlock new solutions. Cyanobacteria are found in virtually every environment and often act as primary producers of organic compounds due to their ability to fix nitrogen and perform photosynthesis. These qualities make them ideally suited for wide-ranging environmental engineering and restoration applications. However, our ability to reprogram their internal biology and external interactions with wider ecosystems is currently lacking, hampering our ability to extend and employ their capabilities for tasks like bioremediation.

This project will directly address these issues by leveraging advances in high-throughput experimental assays, bio-focused metrology, machine learning and trustworthy strain engineering to enable the rapid and secure modification of cyanobacteria. We will build on recent developments in the creation of artificial ecosystems in the lab, to ensure the safe functioning and traceability of our engineered cells in complex environments that better mimic nature. As a case study, we will create engineered cyanobacteria that are able to absorb pollutants, be tracked as they populate an ecosystem, and have features to simplify their physical extraction using magnetic fields. The ability to combine advanced engineering biology tools and techniques with rigorous verification of safety and traceability will be key for future deployment of environmentally focused bioengineered products and ultimately realising the positive translational impact of engineering biology in this space.