Environmental Applications of Synthetic Biology

In this episode we focus on the applications side of synthetic biology for the environmental sciences and environmental microbiology with Dr. Ilenne Del Valle and Emm Fulk. To start, we walk through the more classical omics approaches for understanding environmental microbiology, setting us up for newer synthetic biology approaches. We then discuss the main questions in environmental microbiology that synbio is well suited to help answer. We discuss a few specific problems such as quorum sensing. We learn about what quorum sensing is and how synthetic biology can be used to help understand it. Next we discuss how a researcher would conduct an environmental microbiology study using synthetic biology. We also briefly discuss ethical considerations for these topics, such as the ethics of releasing synthetically modified organisms into the environment as part of a study. This leads to an introduction on cell free sensors as yet another strategy for performing this type of work. We then hear about horizontal gene transfer as another phenomenon that synthetic biology can be used to better understand. We end with a discussion on cryptic processes that occur in microbial communities, how synthetic biology could allow for measuring these processes, and the overall role my guests see for synthetic biology in the future. For more on these topics, see Dr. Ilenne Del Valle and Emm Fulk's recent publication: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.618373/full