{"title":"Marine biorefinery: an environmentally sustainable solution to turn marine biomass and processing wastes into value-added products and profits","authors":"Trung T. Nguyen, Niki Sperou, P. Su, Wei Zhang","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_105","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48918834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The last two years have been a crash course in educating the world about viruses, virology and infectious diseases. Unsurprisingly, viruses have emerged as the harbingers of doom. However, with their newly acquired knowledge, the new armchair virologists fail to grasp the importance of viruses in the living world. They may cause us harm, but without their relentless activity, we’d all be dead anyway. In addition to owing them our lives, they also have the potential to improve our lives with novel biotechnological applications.
{"title":"The potential of nature’s unseen industrious heroes: marine viruses","authors":"M. Allen, Félix Cicéron, Adam Monier","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_108","url":null,"abstract":"The last two years have been a crash course in educating the world about viruses, virology and infectious diseases. Unsurprisingly, viruses have emerged as the harbingers of doom. However, with their newly acquired knowledge, the new armchair virologists fail to grasp the importance of viruses in the living world. They may cause us harm, but without their relentless activity, we’d all be dead anyway. In addition to owing them our lives, they also have the potential to improve our lives with novel biotechnological applications.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49468081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) project has been established to collect all eukaryote species in Britain and Ireland for genomic sequencing. New tech developments have enabled high-quality genomic data to be a feasible outcome for some of Earth’s smallest inhabitants. This project will create a new resource of data open to all, which will contain the blueprint of thousands of organisms, holding the key to the evolutionary histories of understudied single-cell protists alongside more well-understood animals like the grey seal. This ambitious project is a collaboration of experts from different geographic and intellectual areas. It will provide the templates for new ways of working and uncover new scientific ground. In a world struggling under the threat of ecological collapse, this project will provide new bio-tech and engineering information to aid our understanding and management of natural ecosystems and the creatures which create them. The Marine Biological Association UK, based in Plymouth, is currently in the process of collecting marine organisms for the project. The marine environment has not been as well studied as terrestrial environments, and this offers a huge opportunity to expand our understanding of this underexplored realm and the creatures that live there, as well as providing context and detail to marine science which will provide new insights to marine research.
{"title":"Sequencing our seas","authors":"Kes Scott-Somme, J. Harley, Patrick Adkins","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_106","url":null,"abstract":"The Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) project has been established to collect all eukaryote species in Britain and Ireland for genomic sequencing. New tech developments have enabled high-quality genomic data to be a feasible outcome for some of Earth’s smallest inhabitants. This project will create a new resource of data open to all, which will contain the blueprint of thousands of organisms, holding the key to the evolutionary histories of understudied single-cell protists alongside more well-understood animals like the grey seal. This ambitious project is a collaboration of experts from different geographic and intellectual areas. It will provide the templates for new ways of working and uncover new scientific ground. In a world struggling under the threat of ecological collapse, this project will provide new bio-tech and engineering information to aid our understanding and management of natural ecosystems and the creatures which create them. The Marine Biological Association UK, based in Plymouth, is currently in the process of collecting marine organisms for the project. The marine environment has not been as well studied as terrestrial environments, and this offers a huge opportunity to expand our understanding of this underexplored realm and the creatures that live there, as well as providing context and detail to marine science which will provide new insights to marine research.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57653960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A cancer patient treated with a molecule found in algae-eating sea hares native to the Indian Ocean. Jet fuel produced by algae in open urban ponds. A tonne-scale synthesis of pharmaceuticals using enzymes from a green biofilm growing in your backyard. The first example is a reality, but the others are not necessarily confined to a utopian future. All these scenarios can be linked to blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). These talented microbial biochemists generate a vast set of unique secondary (specialized) metabolites. Initially infamous for being potent toxins that have resulted in human deaths, some cyanobacterial secondary metabolites have proven useful and are currently used in the clinic. The enzymes that biosynthesize some of these compounds are likewise remarkable and could find future industrial use. Here, I discuss some aspects of past and current secondary metabolite discovery in cyanobacteria, the potential impact of these small molecules for human activities and how the study of their biosynthesis has unearthed exciting new enzymatic reactions.
{"title":"Blue-green treasures","authors":"P. Leão","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_107","url":null,"abstract":"A cancer patient treated with a molecule found in algae-eating sea hares native to the Indian Ocean. Jet fuel produced by algae in open urban ponds. A tonne-scale synthesis of pharmaceuticals using enzymes from a green biofilm growing in your backyard. The first example is a reality, but the others are not necessarily confined to a utopian future. All these scenarios can be linked to blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). These talented microbial biochemists generate a vast set of unique secondary (specialized) metabolites. Initially infamous for being potent toxins that have resulted in human deaths, some cyanobacterial secondary metabolites have proven useful and are currently used in the clinic. The enzymes that biosynthesize some of these compounds are likewise remarkable and could find future industrial use. Here, I discuss some aspects of past and current secondary metabolite discovery in cyanobacteria, the potential impact of these small molecules for human activities and how the study of their biosynthesis has unearthed exciting new enzymatic reactions.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47120345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over the past 50 years, more than 15 pharmaceuticals derived from marine organisms have come to the market. Most of these come from filter-feeding invertebrates that contain a high proportion of microbial symbionts. Microbiology and molecular genetic studies have shown that many of these drug-like compounds are produced by the microbial symbiont. The enzymes that produce these compounds are promiscuous meaning they can process a diverse range of related substrates, making them extremely attractive to the biotechnology industry. Determining the structure of these enzymes makes them amenable to engineering, allowing them to process non-natural substrates. Using this approach, synthetic substrates can be treated with a cocktail of enzymes to prepare focused libraries of compounds to hit drug targets such as protein–protein interactions. These targets are involved in a range of diseases from cancer to immune disorders and are hard to modulate using small molecule drugs. Complex modified cyclic peptides produced using a chemoenzymatic process may be a promising approach to address these disease conditions.
{"title":"The benefits of living together – studying marine symbioses to discover enzymes for biotechnology applications","authors":"M. Jaspars","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_102","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past 50 years, more than 15 pharmaceuticals derived from marine organisms have come to the market. Most of these come from filter-feeding invertebrates that contain a high proportion of microbial symbionts. Microbiology and molecular genetic studies have shown that many of these drug-like compounds are produced by the microbial symbiont. The enzymes that produce these compounds are promiscuous meaning they can process a diverse range of related substrates, making them extremely attractive to the biotechnology industry. Determining the structure of these enzymes makes them amenable to engineering, allowing them to process non-natural substrates. Using this approach, synthetic substrates can be treated with a cocktail of enzymes to prepare focused libraries of compounds to hit drug targets such as protein–protein interactions. These targets are involved in a range of diseases from cancer to immune disorders and are hard to modulate using small molecule drugs. Complex modified cyclic peptides produced using a chemoenzymatic process may be a promising approach to address these disease conditions.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47665000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Throughout my time as a student I have been fortunate enough to be involved in learned societies. A learned society is an organization (typically not for profit) which aims to promote the scholarly work of a particular discipline. This can take the form of running conferences, publishing literature and offering training and educational resources to society members. Whilst membership to a learned society is often a small fee (often discounted for students) the benefits that can be obtained from membership are extremely rewarding.
{"title":"The benefits of joining a learned society","authors":"R. D. Morris","doi":"10.1042/bio_2022_101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2022_101","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout my time as a student I have been fortunate enough to be involved in learned societies. A learned society is an organization (typically not for profit) which aims to promote the scholarly work of a particular discipline. This can take the form of running conferences, publishing literature and offering training and educational resources to society members. Whilst membership to a learned society is often a small fee (often discounted for students) the benefits that can be obtained from membership are extremely rewarding.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57654340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
F. Fischer, Jun Y Axup, J. Daie, R. Hess, Rana Lonnen
Traditionally, bioenterprise has been dominated by drug development and medical technology. Today, we are experiencing an unprecedented surge in opportunities for life scientists of all backgrounds, and many are joining the sector from other areas. Hear from stakeholders across the bioenterprise community about how you can make the most of it.
{"title":"Setting up for success in bioenterprise","authors":"F. Fischer, Jun Y Axup, J. Daie, R. Hess, Rana Lonnen","doi":"10.1042/bio_2021_205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2021_205","url":null,"abstract":"Traditionally, bioenterprise has been dominated by drug development and medical technology. Today, we are experiencing an unprecedented surge in opportunities for life scientists of all backgrounds, and many are joining the sector from other areas. Hear from stakeholders across the bioenterprise community about how you can make the most of it.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45368803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Innovative products and processes are key to bioenterprise and the creation of successful bio-based businesses and economies. To create new and improved market-ready products, genuinely novel technologies and business advances are usually very necessary. These are exciting and rewarding – but also complex, exacting, expensive and risky, requiring new, often radically new, ways of scientific and business thinking and working by both individuals and companies with collective ambition, imagination, determination and conducive working environments. In this article, ways that could help emerging bioenterprises succeed are discussed, including how to work more innovatively and combine economic success with contributing ‘people’ and ‘planet’ benefits. How NamZ, now called WhatIF Foods, an emerging bio-business, began, started work and developed its first products is described, giving insights into its strategies, the multiple different challenges faced, the various advances necessary to overcome them and the range of skills required. WhatIF’s approach is to identify unmet needs, unsolved problems and under-researched opportunities – and then to devise, invent and develop a stream of new products to meet and solve these, together with processes to make them, in ways that benefit people (such as farming communities) and that are not just sustainable but can actually reverse environmental and related problems. Then WhatIF develops markets for them – right through to new product launches by partner or subsidiary companies each specializing in manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and selling specific products.
{"title":"Opening new doors to new bio-businesses and their novel products and processes","authors":"P. Cheetham","doi":"10.1042/bio_2021_179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1042/bio_2021_179","url":null,"abstract":"Innovative products and processes are key to bioenterprise and the creation of successful bio-based businesses and economies. To create new and improved market-ready products, genuinely novel technologies and business advances are usually very necessary. These are exciting and rewarding – but also complex, exacting, expensive and risky, requiring new, often radically new, ways of scientific and business thinking and working by both individuals and companies with collective ambition, imagination, determination and conducive working environments.\u0000 In this article, ways that could help emerging bioenterprises succeed are discussed, including how to work more innovatively and combine economic success with contributing ‘people’ and ‘planet’ benefits. How NamZ, now called WhatIF Foods, an emerging bio-business, began, started work and developed its first products is described, giving insights into its strategies, the multiple different challenges faced, the various advances necessary to overcome them and the range of skills required. WhatIF’s approach is to identify unmet needs, unsolved problems and under-researched opportunities – and then to devise, invent and develop a stream of new products to meet and solve these, together with processes to make them, in ways that benefit people (such as farming communities) and that are not just sustainable but can actually reverse environmental and related problems. Then WhatIF develops markets for them – right through to new product launches by partner or subsidiary companies each specializing in manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and selling specific products.","PeriodicalId":35334,"journal":{"name":"Biochemist","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48706689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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