Microbes vs Minoans: environmental biotech gets tough

Western society is wasteful of its water, a Sydney meeting heard today -- and the Minoans are to blame.

Five thousand years ago, the Minoans invented a system that used terracotta pipes to carry fresh water into their homes, and take away wastewater. The problem, clean-up campaigner Ian Kiernan told the Environmental Biotechnology CRC showcase meeting, is that we're still using the system today.

Kiernan, who is chairman of the one-year-old CRC, said the world was facing a water crisis which environmental biotechnology could play a key part in allaying. But better communication was essential.

"We've got to take up the challenge of making it sexy and getting people to understand it," he said. "You can do wonderful things, but if you don't communicate them it's a wasted opportunity."

The CRC's research director, Prof Linda Blackall, of the University of Queensland, said that the field of environmental biotechnology was relatively new, and to the broader public, 'biotechnology' meant biomedical research. But among the CRC's aims were to address that issue, as well as to swell the ranks of scientists working in the field.

Most of the CRC's research efforts were on microbial processes, Blackall said, and the knowledge base was limited. Areas like microbial genetics, for example, were largely unexplored. "The overall challenge is to understand complex microbial communities," she said.

Blackall said enabling technologies used by CRC researchers included genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, nanotechnology, process and environmental engineering, and chemistry. By working across disciplines, she said, the CRC aimed to turn its research into commercial products -- chemicals, processes, cultures and technology such as biosensors. Commercial partners already involved with the CRC include Orica, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Collex.

Today's event allowed CRC researchers, from the University of NSW, UQ, Macquarie, Murdoch and SARDI, to showcase their work across a range of projects, including pathogen detection, bioproducts from waste, biofilm control, nutrient removal, waste treatment, bioprocessing and bioremediation.