通过现代生物技术（CLIMB）的气候改善 - 国家生物工程解决方案的气候变化和环境挑战中心
Summary
Tackling pressing environmental challenges — such as climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental toxins and pollution — requires bold, novel approaches that can act at the scale and expediency needed to stop irreversible damage. Environmental biotechnology can provide viable and effective solutions. The America COMPETES Act, if passed, would establish a National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative. To lead the way in innovative environmental protection, a center should be created within this initiative that focuses on applying biotechnology and bioengineering to environmental challenges. The CLimate Improvements through Modern Biotechnology (CLIMB) Center will fast-track our nation’s ability to meet domestic and international decarbonization goals, remediate contaminated habitats, detect toxins and pathogens, and deliver on environmental-justice goals.
这CLIMB Center would (i) provide competitive grant funding across three key tracks — bioremediation, biomonitoring, and carbon capture — to catalyze comprehensive environmental biotechnology research; (ii) house a bioethics council to develop and update guidelines for safe, equitable environmental biotechnology use; (iii) manage testbeds to efficiently prototype environmental biotechnology solutions; and (iv) facilitate public-private partnerships to help transition solutions from prototype to commercial scale. Investing in the development of environmental biotechnology through the CLIMB Center will overall advance U.S. leadership on biotechnology and environmental stewardship, while helping the Biden-Harris Administration deliver on its climate and environmental-justice goals.
挑战和机会
这rapidly advancing field of biotechnology has considerable potential to aid the fight against climate change and other pressing environmental challenges.Fast and inexpensive genetic sequencing of bacterial populations例如，允许研究人员确定能够微生物降解污染物和合成毒素的基因。现有的工具等现有工具以及诸如反折叠式重新组合等新兴技术，使研究人员能够有效地设计可用于的微生物更有效地分解污染物或者capture more carbon。在过去的二十年中，生物技术作为一个行业一直在迅速增长，具有全球市场价值estimated to be worth nearly $3.5 trillion by 2030。这些以及许多其他生物技术进步已经被用来改变诸如医学之类的部门（几乎包括50％的生物技术部门），但迄今为止，在争取更可持续的世界中的斗争中不足。
One reason why biotechnology and bioengineering approaches have not been widely applied to advance climate and environmental goals is that returns on investment are too uncertain, too delayed, or too small to motivate private capital — even if solving pressing environmental issues through biotechnology would deliver massive societal benefits. The federal government can act to address this market failure by creating a designated environmental-biotechnology research center as part of the National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative (美国竞争法案，第二节。10403）。这样做将有助于拜登 - 哈里斯政府实现其雄心勃勃的目标气候行动和environmental justice。
行动计划
这America COMPETES Act would establish a National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative “to establish new research directions and technology goals, improve interagency coordination and planning processes, drive technology transfer to the private sector, and help ensure optimal returns on the Federal investment.” The Initiative is set to be funded through agency contributions and White House Office and Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) budget requests. The America COMPETES Act also calls for creation of undesignated research centers within the Initiative. We propose creating such a center focused on environmental-biotechnology research: The CLimate Improvements through Modern Biotechnology (CLIMB) Center. The Center would be housed under the new National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships and co-led by the NSF Directorate of Biological Sciences. The Center would take a multipronged approach to support biotechnological and bioengineering solutions to environmental and climate challenges and rapid technology deployment.
我们建议该中心的最初承诺为6000万美元，五年来持续3亿美元的资金。主要贡献的联邦机构研究办公室将由OSTP确定，但至少应包括：NSF；农业，国防和能源部（USDA，DOD和DOE）；环境保护局（EPA），国家海洋与大气管理局（NOAA）和美国地质调查局（USGS）。
具体而言，攀登中心将：
- 在三个关键曲目（生物修复，生物监测和碳捕获）中提供竞争性的赠款资金，以催化全面的环境生物技术研究。
- 众议院一个生物伦理委员会，以制定和更新有关安全，公平环境技术使用的准则。
- Manage testbeds to efficiently prototype environmental-biotechnology solutions.
- 促进公私合作伙伴关系，以帮助从原型到商业规模的过渡解决方案。
More detail on each of these components is provided below.
组件1：在关键轨道上提供竞争性赠款资金，以催化全面的环境生物技术研究。
这CLIMB Center will competitively fund research proposals related to (i) bioremediation, (ii) biomonitoring, and (iii) carbon capture. These three key research tracks were chosen to span the approaches to tackle environmental problems from prevention, monitoring to large-scale remediation. Within these tracks, the Center’s research portfolio will span the entire technology-development pathway, from early-stage research to market-ready applications.
曲目1：生物修复
环境污染物对生态系统和人类健康有害。而拜登·哈里斯管理局（Biden-Harris Adminissmationrelease of pollutants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)，，，，many pollutants that have already been released into the environment persist for years or even decades. Bioremediation is the use of biological processes to degrade contaminants within the environment. It is either done within a contaminated site (in-situ bioremediation) or away from it (ex-situ). Traditional in-situ bioremediation isprimarily accomplished by生物调节（加入污染物降解的微生物）或生物刺激（提供氧气或养分以刺激已经存在的污染物降解物的生长）。尽管这些方法起作用，但它们既昂贵又耗时，并且无法在大空间尺度上完成。
Environmental biotechnology can enhance the ability of microbes to degrade contaminants quickly and at scale. Environmental-biotechnology approaches produce bacteria that are better able to分解有毒化学物质，，，，分解塑料废物， 和process wastewater.But the potential of environmental biotechnology to improve bioremediation is still largely未开发，，，，as technology development and regulatory regimes still need to be developed to enable widespread use. CLIMB Center research grants could support the early discovery phase to identify more gene targets for bioremediation as well as efforts to test more developed bioremediation technologies for scalability.
Track 2: Biomonitoring
优化应对环境挑战equires collection of data on pollutant levels, toxin prevalence, spread of invasive species, and much more. Conventional approaches to environmental monitoring (like mass spectrometry or DNA amplification) require specialized equipment, are low-throughput, and need highly trained personnel. In contrast, biosensors—devices that use biological molecules to detect compounds of interest—provide rapid, cost-effective, and user-friendly alternatives to measure materials of interest. Due to these characteristics, biosensors enable users to sample more frequently and across larger spatial scales, resulting in more accurate datasets and enhancing our ability to respond. Detection of DNA or RNA is key for identifying pathogens, invasive species, and toxin-producing organisms. Standard DNA- and RNA-detection techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) require specialized equipment and are slow. By contrast, biosensors detect minuscule amounts of DNA and RNA in minutes (rather than hours) and无需DNA/RNA扩增。SHERLOCK和检测are two examples of highly successful, marketed tools used for diagnostic applications such as检测SARS-COV-2和for ecological purposes such as区分侵入性鱼类来自外观相似的本地物种。向前迈进，这些技术可能是重新利用for other environmental applications, such as monitoring for the presence of algal toxins in water used for drinking, recreating, agriculture, or aquaculture. Furthermore, while existing biosensors can detect DNA and RNA, detecting compounds like pesticides, DNA-damaging compounds, and heavy metals requires a不同类的生物传感器。攀登中心研究补助金可以支持新生物传感器的开发，并修改用于新应用程序的现有生物监测工具。
Track 3: Carbon capture
诸如二氧化碳之类的温室气体的上升水平上升正在推动不可逆转的气候变化。这个问题已经变得如此糟糕，以至于不再足以减少未来的排放 - 将平均全球变暖限制在2°C以下2100将需要实现negativeemissions through capture and removal of atmospheric carbon. A碳捕获方法的数量are currently being developed. These range from engineered approaches such as direct air capture, chemical weathering, and geologic sequestration to biological approaches such as reforestation, soil amendment, algal cultivation, and ocean fertilization.
Environmental-biotechnology approaches such as synthetic biology (“designed biology”) can大大增加了碳的数量that could be captured by natural processes. For instance, plants and crops can be engineered to produce较大的根生物量that sequesters more carbon into the soil, or to store more carbon in harder-to-break-down molecules such aslignin，，，，suberin， 或者sporopollenin而不是容易代谢的糖和纤维素。或者，可以通过修改酶的酶来提高碳捕获效率光合途径或通过合成生物学限制光呼吸。特别是微藻对增强碳捕获的巨大希望。可以对微藻进行生物工程，不仅捕获更多的碳，还可以产生更高的脂质密度biofuel。这potential for synthetic biology and other environmental-biotechnology approaches to enhanced carbon capture is vast, largely unexplored, and certainly under commercialized. CLIMB Center research grants could propel such approaches quickly.
Component 2: House a bioethics council to develop and update guidelines for safe, equitable environmental-biotechnology use.
必须仔细考虑和主动考虑环境生物技术的道德，生态和社会含义，以避免意外损害，并确保福利得到公平分配。因此，攀登中心应组成一个生物伦理委员会，由代表组成：
- 这NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences，，，，which oversees funding biological research and has insights into the ethical implications of such technologies.
- 这DOE的科学办公室，能源效率和可再生能源，化石燃料和碳管理以及联合基因组研究所以及ARPA-E。这些实体对拟议的攀登中心研究有兴趣，尤其是与碳捕获有关的研究。
- 这国立标准技术学院（NIST）的生物标志物和基因组科学小组，，，，which sets standards for tracking, monitoring, and classifying biological and genomic tools.
- NOAA的国家海洋服务办公室，它监督有害的藻华监测网络，并可能谈到海洋环境中环境监测的含义。
- 这国立卫生研究院科学政策办公室和生物安全，生物安全和新兴生物技术办公室，负责评估新兴生物技术的道德意义。这些办公室的代表还可以从生物医学领域提供见解和教训。
- 这EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management，，，，which oversees the Superfund program and will identify key bioremediation priorities and feasible, safe deployment strategies.
- 这USGS的生态系统部，，，，which has interests in species and land management, biological threats, and environmental health and toxins monitoring.
- 这美国农业部自然资源保护中心，农业研究服务和森林服务部的首席科学家办公室，监督农业，能源和土地管理方面的研究和管理工作。
- 这White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council最近是通过行政命令建立的14008和provides recommendations for environmental-justice issues related to climate-change mitigation along with toxins, pesticides, and pollution reduction. Council representatives can provide guidance for equitable ways to deploy technologies that prioritize underserved communities.
生物伦理学委员会将识别关键的伦理d equity issues surrounding emerging environmental biotechnologies. The council will then develop guidelines to ensure transparency of research to the public, engagement of key stakeholders, and safe and equitable technology deployment. These guidelines will ensure that there is a framework for the use of field-ready environmental-biotechnology devices, and that risk assessment is built consistently into regulatory-approval processes. The council’s findings and guidelines will be reported to the National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative’s interagency governance committee which will work with federal and state regulatory agencies to incorporate guidance and streamline regulation and oversight of environmental biotechnology products.
组件3.管理测试床以有效原型环境 - 生物技术解决方案。
将早期研究，原型化和商业化分开的“死亡谷”是众所周知的瓶颈阻碍了创新。鉴于环境生物技术工具通常用于在实验室中难以复制的复杂自然环境中使用，这种瓶颈肯定可以抑制环境生物技术的创新。攀登中心应用作集中式节点，以将研究人员与测试设施和测试地点联系起来，在该设施中，可以对环境生物技术进行适当验证和风险评估。有许多联邦设施可以用于环境生物技术测试台，包括：
- 美国能源部国家实验室
- Smithsonian Institution field stations
- NOAA现场实验室
- NIST实验室和研究床
- 美国森林服务研究站
- 美国农业部国家野生动物研究中心站
- USGS科学中心
- NSF长期生态研究站
- 疾病控制与预防中心的生物技术核心设施
- 国防部环境实验室
这CLIMB Center could also work with industry, state, and local partners to establish other environmental-biotechnology testbeds. Access to these testbeds could be provided to researchers and technology developers as follow-on opportunities to CLIMB Center research grants and/or through stand-alone testing programs managed by the CLIMB Center.
组件4：促进公私伙伴关系，以帮助从原型到商业规模的过渡解决方案。
公私伙伴关系在推进医学生物技术方面非常成功。操作扭曲速度为了引用一个最近的显着示例，可以以前所未有的速度对针对SARS-COV-2进行疫苗的研究，开发，测试和分布。公私合作伙伴关系可以同样发挥作用促进的关键作用the efficient deployment of market-ready environmental biotechnological devices. To this end, the CLIMB Center can reduce barriers for negotiating partnerships between environmental engineers and biotechnology manufacturers. For example, the CLIMB center can develop templates for Memoranda of Understandings (MOUs) and Collaborative Research Agreements (CDAs) to facilitate the initial establishment of the partnerships, as well as help connect interested parties.The CLIMB center could also facilitate access for both smaller companies and researchers to existing government infrastructure necessary to deploy these technologies. For example, an established public-private partnership team could have access to government-managed gene and protein libraries, microbial strain collections, sequencing platforms, computing power, and other specialized equipment. The Center could further negotiate with companies to identify resources (equipment, safety data, and access to employee experts) they are willing to provide. Finally, the Center could determine and fast-track opportunities where the federal government would be uniquely suited to serve as an end user of biotechnology products. For instance, in the bioremediation space, the EPA’s purview for management and cleanup of Superfund sites would immensely benefit from the use of novel, safe, and effective tools to quickly address pollution and restore habitats.
结论
环境和气候挑战是当今社会面临的一些最紧迫的问题。幸运的是，能够对自然过程进行操纵，加速和改进的生物技术进步为应对这些挑战提供了强大的工具。联邦政府可以通过通过现代生物技术（CLIMB）中心建立气候改善来加速环境生物技术的能力和应用。作为国家工程生物学研发计划的一部分，该中心将致力于推进环境生物技术的研究，开发和商业化。攀登中心的研究补助金将集中于生物修复，生物监测和生物辅助碳捕获的进步，而其他攀登中心活动将安全，负责任，负责任地和公平地扩展和商业化新兴的环境生物技术。总体而言，攀登中心将进一步巩固美国在生物技术方面的领导地位，同时帮助拜登·哈里斯（Biden-Harris）政府实现其雄心勃勃的气候，能源和环境司法目标。
Environmental biotechnology can help address wide-reaching, interdisciplinary issues with huge benefits for society. Many of the applications for environmental biotechnology are within realms where the federal government is an interested or responsible party. For instance, bioremediation largely falls within governmental purview. Creating regulatory guidelines in parallel to the development of these new technologies will enable an expedited rollout. Furthermore, environmental biotechnology approaches are still novel and using them on a wide scale in our natural environments will require careful handling, testing, and regulation to prevent unintended harm. Here again, the federal government can play a key role to help validate and test technologies before they are approved for use on a wide scale.
最后，环境生物技术的最大收益将是社会。因此，这种技术的发展应在很大程度上受到改善环境质量和解决环境不公正现象的潜力的驱动，即使这些潜力不赚钱。因此，联邦投资比私人投资更适合用于帮助开发和扩展这些技术，尤其是在回报太小，不确定且过于未来的早期阶段。
生物工程产品已经存在并且正在使用，生物工程创新和技术将在下一世纪继续增长。与其不开发这些工具并落后于其他国家的滞后，最好开发一个强大的监管框架，该框架将解决围绕其用途的关键道德和安全问题。重要的是，每种生物工程产品都会提出自己的一系列风险和挑战。例如，经过基因工程来代谢毒素的细菌物种与可以用作生物传感器的酶或DNA探针大不相同。细菌活着，可以繁殖并可能影响周围的其他生物，尤其是在释放到环境中时。相比之下，生物传感器探针将包含生物部位（不是生物体），并且只有在设备中存在。因此，至关重要的是要确保每种具有独特特征的生物技术产品都经过适当的测试，验证和设计，以最大程度地降低其环境影响并最大程度地提高社会利益。攀登中心将通过促进量子贴床的访问和量化这些风险效力权衡所必需的科学基础设施，从而大大提高环境生物技术产品的安全性。
Biden-Harris政府认识到vast disparity in environmental quality and exposure to contaminants that exist across communities in the United States. Communities of color are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards and bear the burden of climate change-related events.For example，越接近超级基金地点的距离越近，该地点被认为被污染了足以保证联邦监督的地方，黑人的比例越高，白人家庭比例越低。为了解决这些差异，政府发布了行政命令14008to advance environmental justice efforts. Through this order, President Biden created an Environmental Justice Advisory Council and launched the Justice40 initiative, which mandates that 40% of the benefits from climate investments be delivered to underserved communities. The Justice40 initiative includes priorities such as the “remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water infrastructure.” The Executive Order also calls for the creation of a “community notification program to monitor and provide real-time data to the public on current environmental pollution…in frontline and fenceline communities — places with the most significant exposure to such pollution.” Environmental biotechnology offers an incredible opportunity to advance these goals by enhancing water treatment and bioremediation and enabling rapid and efficient monitoring of environmental contaminants.
President Biden has set targets for a 50–52% reduction (relative to 2005 levels) in net greenhouse-gas pollution by the year 2030, and has directed federal government operations to reach 100% carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2030 (行政命令14057）。这是well established会议这样的气候目标,限制世界人口l warming to less than 2°C will require negative emissions technologies (carbon capture) in addition to reducing the amount of emissions created by energy and other sectors. Carbon-capture technologies will need to be widely available, cost-effective, and scalable. Environmental biotechnology can help address these needs by enhancing our capacity for biological carbon capture through the use of organisms such asmicroalgae和大藻类，甚至可以在碳中性或中性或其他产品中生产生物燃料，原料和其他产品的双重作用碳阴性方式。攀登中心可以将美国建立为展望生物技术的全球领导者以及它可以提供的许多未开发的环境和气候解决方案。
在生物工程中，有多种资助基础研发的途径。目前以环境重点为生物工程资助的联邦机构和办公室包括（但不一定限于）：
- DOE科学办公室的各种研究计划ARPA-E和DOE的生物能源技术办公室
- EPA’s Office of Research and Development, Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program
- National Science Foundation’s Biological Sciences and Engineering Directorates
- USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Biotechnology Risk Assessment Research Grants Program
- NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
- NASA的太空技术任务局
- 美国国家卫生研究院环境卫生局和国家生物医学成像和生物工程研究所
- DOD’s DARPA, Biological Technologies Office
这些办公室提供的研究资金通常包括生物医学重点。攀登中心提供的研发资金将寻求基于这些努力，并帮助协调针对环境生物技术应用的指导研究。
Compared to conventional analytical techniques,biosensors are fast, cost-effective, easy-to-use, and largely portable并且在很大程度上是便携式的。但是，生物传感器并不总是准备采用传统技术。在许多情况下，监管机构有批准的分析技术可以用于合规性。即使生物传感器可以补充传统技术，也很少将新型生物传感器包含在批准的技术套件中，例如，通过允许调节器快速筛选更多样品以使用批准的常规方法进行进一步处理的优先级。此外，由于常规方法只能提供快照测量值，因此可能缺少毒素，污染物或病原体的关键时间段。另一方面，生物传感器可用于连续监测给定区域。例如，藻类可以积聚（开花）并产生在海鲜中积聚的有效毒素。为了保护人类健康，使用分析化学方法（直接测量毒素）或生物测定（暴露实验室动物的健康监测）测试了海鲜。这要求监管机构决定何时最好采样。但是，如果将生物传感器部署在海洋中的监测阵列中或收集海鲜的人们使用，则可以作为这些毒素存在的早期检测系统。由于气候变化改变了这些藻华的地理分布和季节性，因此该应用将变得尤为重要。
有色人种更有可能居住在超级基金遗址附近，面对污染物，并承受着气候变化影响的最大负担。这些社区也受到不道德的环境和医学研究实践的影响不成比例的。旨在改善环境成果的新颖工具必须使这些社区受益，并且不会造成意外伤害。攀登中心生物伦理委员会制定的指南以及对现实测试床中环境生物技术的评估将有助于确保情况。
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