What is environmental biotechnology?

摘要

Environmental biotechnology is a discipline with an ever expanding horizon. Consider the words that make up the name of this field. The word 'environmental' suggests contextual linkages that might entail studies done directly in the environment or with environmental samples, studies with a focus on applications in the environment, or research to exploit environmental information for some other greater good. This issue of Current Opinion in Biotechnology contains articles covering all of these salient meanings of the word 'environmental', from working directly in the environment to exploiting genes derived from the environment for various purposes. The second word that describes this field is 'biotechnology'. This word can be split into its two roots: 'bio' and 'technology'. The prefix 'bio' implies that the emphasis of this scientific discipline is on biology and biological processes, rather than on the chemical and physical processes that are components of the larger discipline of environmental science — with which environmental biotechnology has a natural affiliation. 'Bio', as a prefix, sets disciplinary boundaries. Researchers and practitioners in this field work directly with organisms in the environment or with living systems at a cellular or subcellular level. With the suffix 'technology' attached, the sense of the prefix 'bio' is shifted in a subtle manner such that there is the implication of an applied or technical aspect to the work. This could be to apply newly developed technological tools (such as PGR) or information (such as genome sequences) to the analysis of biological processes in the environment. In this instance, environmental biotechnology would be the recipient of information from other scientific fields. On the other hand, the technological aspect could also be to exploit biological information gained from the environment by using it to understand environmental processes, such as carbon cycling and metal transformation. In a third technological sense, tangible biological materials as well as knowledge of biological processes in the environment could be transferred to other scientific fields. Excellent examples of this are biodiversity exploitation, industrial applications of biological processes, and pollution control and abatement. The papers in this issue span the entire discipline of environmental biotechnology in an overlapping fashion. They include reviews of microbial activities in nature, the degradative abilities of pure cultures, the mechanisms by which bacteria evolve new pathways, and the potential industrial applications of what we have learned from environmental microbiology.