Environmental biotech: Bugs and biotechnology

With alarm bells ringing over genetically modified organisms and their potential effects on the environment, stories about how biotechnology is also being used to improve the environment are harder to find.

Environmental biotechnology is an emerging sector in the biotechnology industry. Broadly speaking, it can be defined as using biotechnology to solve environmental problems.

"We're still in the process of defining what environmental biotechnology is," says Prof Graham Mitchell, a chief scientist for the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment and an advocate for environmental biotechnology. "There is an extremely big need for it."

Mitchell believes that Australia has an excellent opportunity to develop biotechnology solutions for environmental problems, particularly as Australia already has a clean and green image internationally.

"It's an area that is not crowded at the moment. We need to define what environmental biotechnology is and how Australia can get a jump in the field," he says.

Dr David Garman, CEO of the CRC for Waste Management and Pollution Control, defines environmental biotechnology as the application of biotechnology to better protect the environment and conserve biodiversity.

Garman is also leading a bid to establish a CRC for Environmental Biotechnology, which would focus on bioprocessing technology, such as creating valuable products from bioprocessing of waste.

"Its an area that is neglected in Australia, but there is huge interest internationally," he says.

Garman explains that while Australia is an internationally recognised performer in environmental biotechnology research, for the most part the technology is not yet being applied commercially.

"We have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor," he says.

Applications Some of the applications of environmental biotechnology include:

• Bioremediation: the clean-up of sites contaminated with toxic chemicals, such as petroleum derivatives, pesticide residues and heavy metals.
• Biomonitoring and diagnostic applications: detection of pathogenic microorganisms in the water supply or other environment.
• Bioprocessing: clean bio-production methods versus chemical production, as well as efficient value-adding waste processing methods.
• Pathogen and pest control: new methods for controlling pathogens and pest animals without detrimental effects on the environment.
• Conservation of wildlife and endangered species.

But the lines can be blurred. Sustainable agriculture practices may also fall under the category of environmental biotechnology, for example in the treatment of soil salinity problems with crop plants designed to grow in saline conditions, and reduce salinity.

The Federal government has recognised the potential for environmental biotechnology to play a role in sustainability, natural resource management and protection of biodiversity in its National Biotechnology Strategy released in 2000.

Peter Burnett, the Assistant Secretary of Environment Australia's Chemicals and the Environment Branch, says that over the next 12 months Environment Australia hopes to focus more on the possibilities created by environmental biotechnology.

To date Environment Australia's role in biotechnology has been more concerned with regulatory aspects.

"We think there is a lot of potential in environmental biotechnology. It has been untapped so far," he says.

He adds that bioremediation is already reasonably well developed, but has a lot more potential. In addition, he cited waste treatment, bioprocessing and immunocontraceptives as areas of interest to Environment Australia.

Prof Linda Blackall, a researcher at the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre at the University of Queensland, believes that while the government's biotechnology focus has been more on the biomedical applications of biotechnology, it could benefit from pushing environmental biotechnology more.

"There is potential to capitalise on discoveries if industry is willing to take it forward," she explains. Australia is a world leader in some areas of research, including wastewater treatment, she says.

Blackall's research focuses on treatment of wastewater. In particular, she is interested in enhancing activated sludge treatments by exploiting bacterial metabolic processes and microbial systems for different waste treatment niches including removal of nitrogen and phosphorous.

She says that the generation of high-value products from waste, rather than release into the environment, is a big focus for environmental biotechnology these days.

But Blackall says that genetic modification of microorganisms for environmental purposes is not a good option at this point as too much is still unknown about the microbes and the biochemical mechanisms involved.

"In certain specific markets there could be a role for genetic engineering," she says. "But there is so much potential in the natural populations."