Abstract
Pollution is an ongoing issue faced by societies today. There are a number of pollutants in soil and water that present harms not only to local habitats and ecosystems, but also indirectly to humans. Biological based solutions, specifically related to genetics, are being developed and evaluated to address monitoring and decontamination. Many of the same technologies used for medical applications and genetically modified foods are also used to develop new tools to help detect and clean up polluted areas. However, unlike a closed or contained system such as the human body or a greenhouse, there are several concerns regarding the safety of these environmental applications once they are released into the environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Resources
Rylott EL, Bruce NC. How synthetic biology can help bioremediation. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 2020, 58:86–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2020.07.004
Burén S, López-Torrejón G, Rubio LM. Extreme bioengineering to meet the nitrogen challenge. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Sep 4;115(36):8849–8851. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1812247115.
Chouler J, Cruz-Izquierdo Á, Rengaraj S, Scott JL, Di Lorenzo M: A screen-printed paper microbial fuel cell biosensor for detection of toxic compounds in water. Biosens Bioelectron 2018, 102:49–56.
Lee et al. Biotechnological Advances in Bacterial Microcompartment Technology. Trends Biotechnol. 2019 Mar;37(3):325–336. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.08.006.
Kahn J. The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We? The New York Times Magazine. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage
Our World in Data. Oil Spills (2013). Available at https://ourworldindata.org/oil-spills
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Who Thinks Crude Oil Is Delicious? These Ocean Microbes Do. Available at https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/who-thinks-crude-oil-delicious-these-ocean-microbes-do.html
Nina Dombrowski, John A. Donaho, Tony Gutierrez, Kiley W. Seitz, Andreas P. Teske, Brett J. Baker. Reconstructing metabolic pathways of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Nature Microbiology, 2016; 16057 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/NMICROBIOL.2016.57
McFarlin et al. Biodegradation of dispersed oil in Arctic seawater at −1 °C. PLoS One. 2014; 9(1): e84297. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3885550/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Haga, S.B. (2022). Cleaning Up the Environment. In: The Book of Genes and Genomes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-70916-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-70916-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-70915-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-70916-1
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)