The Role of Synthetic Biology in Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Prospects and Challenges
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1016207.pdf
Description
Published version
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380.89 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Patrinos, Aristides
MacCracken, Michael
Drell, Dan
Annas, George
Arkin, Adam
Church, George
Cook-Deegan, Robert
Jacoby, Henry
Lidstrom, Mary
Melillo, Jerry
Date Issued
2020
Journal
BioDesign Research
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The long atmospheric residence time of CO2 creates an urgent need to add atmospheric carbon drawdown to CO2 regulatory strategies. Synthetic and systems biology (SSB), which enables manipulation of cellular phenotypes, offers a powerful approach to amplifying and adding new possibilities to current land management practices aimed at reducing atmospheric carbon. The participants (in attendance: Christina Agapakis, George Annas, Adam Arkin, George Church, Robert Cook-Deegan, Charles DeLisi, Dan Drell, Sheldon Glashow, Steve Hamburg, Henry Jacoby, Henry Kelly, Mark Kon, Todd Kuiken, Mary Lidstrom, Mike MacCracken, June Medford, Jerry Melillo, Ron Milo, Pilar Ossorio, Ari Patrinos, Keith Paustian, Kristala Jones Prather, Kent Redford, David Resnik, John Reilly, Richard J. Roberts, Daniel Segre, Susan Solomon, Elizabeth Strychalski, Chris Voigt, Dominic Woolf, Stan Wullschleger, and Xiaohan Yang) identified a range of possibilities by which SSB might help reduce greenhouse gas concentrations and which might also contribute to environmental sustainability and adaptation. These include, among other possibilities, engineering plants to convert CO2 produced by respiration into a stable carbonate, designing plants with an increased root-to-shoot ratio, and creating plants with the ability to self-fertilize. A number of serious ecological and societal challenges must, however, be confronted and resolved before any such application can be fully assessed, realized, and deployed.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.34133/2020/1016207
