Visiting Another Old and Familiar Friend: Algae Biotechnology

Dear Colleagues:

Opportunities to deploy algae biotechnology to address energy, food, and chemical needs have continued to expand and mature over the last two decades. Like many other cutting-edge biotechnologies, algae biotechnology development has been driven through life sciences discovery, technological innovations that have opened up the blueprint of life, expanding market opportunities, and success stories from companies that have aggressively moved forward with commercialization. The story that is unfolding is an exciting one, with members of the industrial biotechnology community working hard and smart to develop innovative solutions to the diverse technological, economic, and environmental challenges to the continued expansion of algae biotechnology for the global bioeconomy. Thus, in keeping with our mission at IB to chronicle the unfolding industrial biotechnology research, development, and deployment space, we offer the community this “In Depth” issue on algae biotechnology.

Leading this in-depth issue is Dr. Val Smith, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS). I had the privilege of serving with Dr. Smith on a National Research Council review of algae biofuel development and found him to be a very engaging and thoughtful champion for algae biotechnology. He has pulled together a diverse group of industrial, academic, and government researchers to help us understand the challenges and opportunities for algae-based biofuels and bioproducts. The original research presented in this “In Depth” issue ranges from efforts to assess inter-specific interactions of natural algal communities (Kazamina et al.) to contamination management in low cost algae ponds for biofuels productions (McBride et al.). Given that algae biofuels and bioproducts enterprises require the successful integration of biotechnologies and other technologies to yield technical, economic, and environmentally friendly production systems, there is a need to deploy a systems approach to understand the development of these enterprises. Miara et al. provide one such framework in their article “An Optimization Framework for Algal Systems in the Energy-Water-Food Nexus.”

In keeping with our algae biotechnology theme, we offer two Catalyzing Innovation articles that explore how two companies are providing innovative solutions to technical challenges posed by algae biofuels and bioproducts opportunities. Open ponds for algae production are often seen as a low cost cultivation approach; however, these open bioreactors are susceptible to disruptive meteorological conditions and microbial contaminations. How to “manage” these types of disruptions is core to the innovation story shared with us by Robert McBride, Sapphire Energy (San Diego, CA) and Delaney S. Merrick, University of Washington (Seattle). The use of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for real time tracking of pests, and the leveraging of trophic interactions by actively deploying rotifers represent an exciting approach to managing pure cultures in an open environment.

Tracking the “health” of algae cultivation systems is also at the core of the Catalyzing Innovation feature from our colleagues at Fluid Imaging Technologies (Scarborough, ME). Lew Brown provides us with an exciting story on how dynamic imaging particle analysis (DIPA) can be used to “analyze large, statistically significant populations of algal cells rapidly in an automated fashion.” The advancement of imaging tools, coupled with the currently available high speed computational power, has created unprecedented opportunities for rapid acquisition and processing of microbial samples that can be moving through flow cells for real time imaging and analyses. Such real time analyses of microbial culture are playing an important role in managing algae cultivations and other relevant industrial microbiology systems. The reviews, original research articles, and Catalyzing Innovation features in this issue of IB demonstrate that there is a lot exciting research and development underway in algae biotechnology.

Also in this issue of the journal we continue to explore how synthetic biology is evolving to drive biotechnological innovation. Nancy J. Kelley & Associates (NJK&A) has provided a Commentary and an Industry Report that seek to provide our readers with a view of the unfolding research and commercialization landscape for synthetic biology in the United States, and provide us with a set of actions needed to create and nurture innovation ecologies that are robust, dynamic, and productive. The launching point for this discussion on synthetic biology is the creation and operation of the National Science Foundation-funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc, Emeryville, CA; www.synberc.org). This Center has played an important role in early synthetic biology discovery and deployment through a set of comprehensive collaborative ventures with researchers from several universities and a set of industrial collaborations. With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, NJK&A has developed a strategic action plan to advance the field of synthetic biology in the US. In many respects, this IB Commentary is a call for action for the academic, government, and industrial sectors to mobilize in support of continued US leadership in this vital area of scientific discovery and technological innovation. The Industry Report from NJK&A is a distillation of a larger report that provides an assessment of the emerging synthetic biology opportunities and the market, regulatory, funding, and social drivers that will influence the impact that synthetic biology will have on the global bioeconomy. Both articles provide much food for thought on how to drive synthetic biology research, development, and deployment in the service of the global bioeconomy.

The industrial biotechnology sector is global; thus we welcome hearing from our colleagues from different parts of the world. In this issue we have two Industry Reports from our EuropaBio colleagues. The first report, “Biotechnology Industry Manifesto, 2014–2019 for the new European Parliament and New Commissioners,” is a call for action, very similar to the one by NJK&A, which underscores the importance for Europe to exploit its investment in biotechnology research for economic development. The report outlines a three-phase program to expand Europe's participation in the global bioeconomy. The second report, “Biotech in Europe: The Tax, Finance, and Regulatory Framework and Global Policy Comparisons,” is a continuation of this call for action. It calls for the European community to create a nurturing policy, tax, and financial environment to enable industrial biotechnology to compete effectively in the global bioeconomy.

Industrial biotechnology development is science driven; thus, we thank the authors of the original research reports for providing our readers with new insights into algae biotechnology. We also thank our other authors for helping us understand how policy and markets shape how the science is deployed to innovate in support of the global bioeconomy. Thus, we must continue to be nimble and agile in our effort to drive biotechnology innovation and implementation.