Environmental

Biotechnology
(BBT427)

Spring 2020

Lecture 01
Prepared by Dr. Ishrat Jabeen
Environmental Biotechnology

• Environmental biotechnology is the application of biotechnology for

solving environmental problems, both in the environment or in man
made ecosystems.
• It can be considered as a driving force for integrated environmental
protection leading to sustainable development.

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Rainbow code of biotechnology- by Pawel KAFARSKI – Department of Bioorganic
Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Wroclaw University
of Technology

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 Classification of biotechnologies. Modification from: Disilva
Red Medical
• “Green biotechnology” encompasses a wide range of techniques that
Yellow Food biotechnology
consists of culturing plant tissues and/or organs, followed by the
Green Agriculture
multiplication of the relevant plants with desirable characteristics.
Blue Aquatic
• It also includes the transformation of plants, crop species, and varieties
White Gene-based industry
through genetic engineering techniques, leading to what are known as
GreyFermentation
“genetically modified” (GM) crops. In addition, green or agricultural
Brown Arid
biotechnology also applies to techniques used in livestock husbandry
GoldNanotechnology/bioinformatics
Purple Intellectual
Dark Bioterrorism/warfare “Red biotechnology” encompasses the genetic engineering
technique that has been used since the mid-1970s to produce drugs
and vaccines in microorganisms, animal cells, and more recently in
plants. For example, insulin, human and bovine growth hormones,
interferon, cell growth factors, B vaccine, and others are being
produced in this way.

“White biotechnology” refers to a wide range of processes resulting in fermented products and chemicals (e.g.,
enzymes, biofuels such as ethanol and bioplastics) as well as to the technologies used in recycling waste water,
industrial effluents, and solid wastes. These “bioremediation” processes contribute to the abatement of
pollution. The extraction of metals from ores with the help of microorganisms (biomining) is also part of white or
environmental biotechnology 4
Environmental Biotechnology deals
with
• Decontamination of environmental components
• Production of chemicals biosensors
• Pollution prevention
• Waste minimization

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Contaminants released into the
environment
• Solvents
• Pesticides
• Herbicides
• Fungicides
• Insecticides
• Petrochemicals
• Explosives
• Heavy metals

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Environmental biotechnology includes

• Biomarkers
• Bioremediation
• Biosensors
• Bioindicators
• Pollution prevention

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Biomarkers

• A biomarker (short for biological marker) is an objective measure that

captures what is happening in a cell or an organism at a given
moment.
• Hormones and breast cancer – Blood levels of anti-Mullerian
hormone (AMH), a hormone produced by the ovaries that normally
declines significantly prior to menopause, is a biomarker for risk of
breast cancer in premenopausal women (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences).

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Bioremediation
• A practice in which microbiological process are used to degrade or
transform contaminants to less toxic or non-toxic forms.
•  The chief advantage of bioremediation is its reduced cost compared
with conventional techniques such as incineration for which the
remediation of all contaminated sites in the USA alone is estimated to
be $1.7 trillion (Kuiper et al., 2004) or $7000 per citizen (Bioremediation, a broad
perspective, Dillewijn PV et al, 2009).

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Examples of Bioremediation

• Phytoremediation: Uses various types of plants to remove, transfer, stabilize, and/or

destroy contaminants in the soil and groundwater.
• Mycoremediation: Fungi-based technology is used to decontaminate the
environment.
• Bioventing: An in situ remediation technology that uses microorganisms to
biodegrade organic constituents adsorbed on soils in the unsaturated zone.
• Bioleaching: A process in mining and biohydrometallurgy (natural processes of
interactions between microbes and minerals) that extracts valuable metals from a
low-grade ore with the help of microorganisms such as bacteria or archaea.
• Land farming: Performed in the upper soil zone or in bio treatment cells.
Contaminated soils, sediments, or sludges are incorporated into the soil surface and
periodically turned over or tilled to aerate the mixture.

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Examples of Bioremediation

• Bioreactor: It is defined as a vessel that carries out a biological reaction and is used to
culture aerobic cells for conducting cellular or enzymatic immobilization.
• Composting: The process that speeds up decomposition of organic materials by
providing ideal conditions for microorganisms to thrive.
• Bioaugmentation: The addition of pregrown microbial cultures to enhance microbial
populations at a site to improve contaminant clean up and reduce clean up time and
cost.
• Biostimulation: One of the most mature methods of bioremediation of hydrocarbons,
yet recent advances in geophysics, stable isotope analyses, and molecular microbiology
promise dramatic increases in the depth, breadth, and throughput of biostimulation
strategies.

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Process considering in bioremediation

• Physically removal or contamination

• Separation of contamination from medium
• Degradation
• Immobilization

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Use of Bioremediation
Bacteria, Achaea, fungi are used due to their rapid growth rate, variable metabolic
needs and their ability to be genetically manipulated.
• Waste water treatment
• Soil bioremediation
• Solid waste bioremediation
• Biotreatment of gaseous streams
• Biodegradation of hydrocarbons
• Biosorption

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Biosensor
• Environmental biosensors are the analytical device composed of
biological sensing elements and a physically transducer which
together relate to measurable signal.
• A biosensor can be defined as an analytical device that combines a
biologically sensitive recognition element (such as antibodies, nucleic
acids, enzymes, organelles, and whole cells) immobilized on a
physicochemical transducer, and connected to a detector to identify
the presence of one or more specific analytes, their concentrations,
and kinetics in a sample.

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Figure1: Schematic of different parts of a biosensor including biological
recognition elements, transducers, and detectors
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Types of biosensor based on
transduction signal
• Electrochemical-to analyze environment and food
• Optical
• Peizoelectric (Effect is the ability of certain materials to generate an
electric charge in response to applied mechanical stress.)
• Thermal sensor

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Types of biosensor based on
biorecognition principal
• Microorganism
• Enzyme
• antibody

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Bioindicators

• Biological indicators are the species that can be used to monitor the
environment of ecosystem
• Copepods-an example

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Pollution prevention

Uses biotechnology approach to produce products biologically and

environment friendly. Pollution prevention includes
• Modification of bioremediation and degradation
• Pulp and paper industry
• Chemicals
• Use enzymes in detergent
• Bioenergy from biomass
• biorefinery

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Microbes and human welfare

• Microbes are essential for life as we know it and the processes that support life-
methane and ethane produced by microbes can be used as alternative fuels to
generate electricity and power vehicles.
• Humans utilize and harness microorganisms and their products-bacterial
enzymes have been used by biotechnology companies to break down plant
cellulose for yeast to metabolize the resulting simple sugars to produce ethanol.

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Some beneficial activities by microbes

• Recycling vital elements

• Sewage treatment-using microbes to recycle water
• Bioremediation-using microbes to clean up pollutants
• Insect pest control by microorganisms
• Modern biotechnology and recombinant DNA technology

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 Penicillin

Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp.

bulgaricus and Streptococcus
thermophilus bacteria.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Streptococcus bovis,
Megasphaera elsdenii

Lactobacillus Acidophilus
(Lactobacteria), E.coli and
Bifidobacterium Bifidum
(Bifidobacteria)
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 Closing Remarks
• Environmental biotechnology is the branch of biotechnology that addresses
environmental problems, such as the removal of pollution, renewable energy
generation or biomass production, by exploiting biological processes.

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