Synthetic biology: A new era of "natural work"

When different materials meet in the lab, what kind of sparks do they create?
Recently, the concept of synthetic biology has heated up rapidly and extended to the capital markets. The industry believes that synthetic biology, as one of the disruptive technologies in the field of life science in the 21st century, has a very wide range of applications and promising prospects, and many countries have also taken it as a key area of strength. With the continuous deepening of synthetic biology research, its potential advantages in energy conservation, low-carbon environmental protection and other fields are gradually emerging.

"Biofabrication +" race

Carbon dioxide to make sugar? You heard me right. The seemingly impossible question of how carbon dioxide and sugar in the air can change from the former to the latter has become a reality.

In 2021, in the laboratory of Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, located in Tianjin Airport Economic Zone, artificial synthesis from carbon dioxide to starch came true, and soon became well-known at home and abroad. Two years later, in 2023, standing on the "shoulder" of the achievements of starch synthesis, the institute cooperated with the scientific research team of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to achieve another innovative leap - accurate total synthesis of carbon dioxide to sugar.

Yang Jiangang, who worked on the study at the institute, said that the fruitful results produced in the laboratory provide a practical way for researchers to escape the shackles of natural conditions and use carbon dioxide to create a variety of sugars.

The research team started with the enzymatic reactions such as carbon condensation, isomerization and dephosphorization, and modified the catalytic characteristics of the natural source enzyme catalyst by artificial means. Into the experimental operation, the researchers will be carbon dioxide and other raw materials in the reaction solution according to a certain proportion, under the catalysis of artificially modified enzymes and other catalysts, efficiently and accurately obtain glucose, alor ketose, tagose, mannose 4 hexose.

Yang Jiangang said that the carbon conversion rate of the process is higher than that of traditional plant photosynthesis, and it is more efficient than the known chemical method of sugar, and the electrochemical-biological coupling method of artificial sugar production. Compared with the traditional way of extracting sugar by growing crops such as sugar cane, the time of obtaining sugar has jumped from "years" to "hours".

The "metamorphosis" of carbon dioxide in the laboratory is a microcosm of today's fiery synthetic organisms. Generally speaking, synthetic biotechnology is a new "creation" technology, which can be understood as the engineering of biology. It integrates biology, chemistry, engineering and other technologies, with renewable biomass as raw materials, with organisms as production media, aiming to use cheap raw materials, strains, cells, enzymes as manufacturing plants, through large-scale fermentation to obtain target products, with clean, efficient, renewable and other characteristics.

As a frontier interdisciplinary discipline, the scope of application of synthetic biology basically covers medicine, health, manufacturing, agriculture and other most fields. Especially in the food, cosmetics, functional nutrition and other industries, its application can realize the fastest industrialization, and greatly improve the production efficiency of these industries, with broad prospects.

At the recently held annual meeting of the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum, Tan Tianwei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, had high hopes for the future of synthetic biology. He said that the bioeconomy is expected to become an important force leading the fourth industrial revolution in the future after the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution and the digital revolution. Bio-manufacturing is a very important new track and new format of new quality productivity, currently led by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology and other national ministries are jointly developing the national biotechnology and bio-manufacturing action plan, and is expected to be issued in the near future, "bio-manufacturing +" is the key content of which.

By 2025, $100 billion

What changes will synthetic biology bring to the economic and social development of human beings? We can see it from what we have achieved.

In terms of its driving role in the economy, as Tan Tianwei said, with further breakthroughs in biotechnology, biological manufacturing is expected to expand to mining, metallurgy, electronic information, environmental protection and other fields, and the development prospects are very broad, and will become an important engine of economic growth.

McKinsey data show that the economic value of synthetic biology and biofuturing is expected to reach $100 billion by 2025, and 60% of the future global material production can be achieved through biofuturing.

At present, the domestic from the central to the local authorities have introduced synthetic biology related support policies. The 14th Five-Year Plan for Bioeconomic Development issued by the National Development and Reform Commission mentions "synthetic organisms" in many places; Shanghai issued the "Shanghai Action Plan to Accelerate Synthetic Biology Innovation and Build High-end biological Manufacturing Industrial Cluster (2023-2025)", which plans to build a global synthetic biology innovation and innovation highland, an international achievement transformation highland and an international high-end intelligent manufacturing highland by 2030, and basically build a high-end biological manufacturing industrial cluster with global influence. Hangzhou, Changzhou and other places have introduced encouraging policies.

At present, global resource shortage, environmental pollution, climate change and other problems are becoming increasingly prominent, synthetic biotechnology provides a feasible path to solve these development difficulties and achieve sustainable development.

Also taking the conversion of carbon dioxide to sugar as an example, the traditional processing process of "carbon dioxide - biomass resources - sugar" is limited by the energy conversion efficiency of plant photosynthesis. Due to land degradation and shortages, extreme weather and natural disasters caused by global warming, production methods that rely on sugar biomass resources are facing security of supply risks. Artificial, efficient and precise sugar production is expected to help reduce the risk of uncertainty from agricultural production and more fully meet human sugar needs.

Yang Jiangang said that the sugar obtained through this research method can not only be used as raw materials in food, medicine and other fields, effectively alleviate the pressure on sugar demand caused by population growth, but also show a wide range of practical value in many fields such as biomedics and industry. The result opens a new path to direct sugar production under industrial conditions, reducing the dependence on land and water. Converting carbon dioxide into starch, sugar and other necessities for human production will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help achieve the "double carbon" goal as soon as possible.

Industry experts also pointed out that in agricultural production, soil compaction and acidification caused by the large increase in the use of nitrogen fertilizer can be effectively solved by synthetic biology "microbial nitrogen fixation" technology. In terms of environmental governance, "customized" microorganisms can be used to remove organic pollutants that are difficult to degrade, artificial microbial sensors can also be developed to help humans monitor the environment, and microorganisms that can identify and enrich cadmium, mercury, arsenic and other pollutants in soil or water can be designed to greatly improve the efficiency of pollution control.

"Synthetic biology is a disruptive technology that drives the development of biotechnology and is the underlying support for achieving green manufacturing and" dual carbon "goals. In the future, 80% of the matter in life can be produced by cell factories, covering various fields of food, clothing, housing and medicine." Said Zhao Yan, chairman of Huaxi Biotechnology Co., LTD.

Industrialization enables a better life

Not long ago, the Synthetic biology innovation team of Jiangnan University's Future Food Science Center announced that they have achieved the artificial synthesis of hyaluronic acid, and the cost of this process has been greatly reduced. "Hyaluronic acid was first discovered and extracted from the eyes of cattle, and the price is very expensive, tens of thousands of yuan per kilogram." Now our team uses synthetic biology technology to produce ordinary molecular weight hyaluronic acid with the help of microbial fermentation, reducing the cost to several hundred yuan per kilogram, and realizing the large-scale application of hyaluronic acid." Innovation team member Kang Zhen said.

Through technical research, the team can use cell factories to produce "everything", which greatly reduces the cost of raw materials, making the acquisition of many cosmetic raw materials no longer dependent on traditional animal and plant extraction.

"The technological breakthroughs in synthetic biology are shining and will bring unprecedented broad prospects and unlimited possibilities for future innovation and application fields." We will take root in the field of synthetic biology and biological manufacturing, serve local economic development, promote the upgrading and transformation of related industrial chains, and contribute to the development of new quality productivity." Innovation team leader Wang Chao said.

It can be optimistically predicted that as more and more breakthrough synthetic biotechnology achievements are born in the laboratory and accelerated industrialization, it will be more convenient to empower human beings for a better life.

In particular, based on the huge domestic market and complete supply chain, as well as years of deep cultivation in some fields, China's synthetic biology research is currently in a global favorable position. Looking to the future, Zhao Yan believes that synthetic biology should pay more attention to strengthening industry-university-research cooperation to ensure that scientists focus on original scientific research from 0 to 1. At the same time, enterprises actively participate in it, give full play to the role of "production", and promote the industrial transformation and market transformation of synthetic biological scientific research results.

Chen Jian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Jiangnan University, proposed that a high-level platform equipped with advanced instruments and equipment and high-level talents should be built to promote original innovation and produce high-quality results. To this end, the head enterprise with a sound production and marketing system, and the start-up company with advantages in technological product development, both give full play to their advantages, will be able to promote the prosperity of the biotechnology industry more quickly.