Advancing Life: Biomedical Technology

to treat wastewater entering a treatment plant This bioremediation can directly benefit some of the estimated 842,000 people that die from diarrheal diseases annually and the estimated 2 6 billion people that don’t have any sanitation. More commonplace modifications come in the form of your food. You may not realize it, but some of your food items have already been genetically modified to provide nutrients necessary to stay healthy. For instance, you may be eating rice modified to produce beta-carotene, a yellow-orange pigment usually associated with carrots The body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which helps it maintain good vision, a strong immune system, and healthy skin and mucous membranes. This strain of rice could combat the vitamin A deficiency that causes blindness in 250,000–500,000 children every year, which increases their risk of death from infectious diseases Scientists have even engineered bacteria cells for targeted cancer therapy

In the past, they have used bacteria with edited genomes to attack tumors by targeting them and producing anticancer substances. However, this posed the risk of letting the bacteria grow out of control, which led to the creation of “SimCells” and “mini-SimCells” to directly combat this issue This “simple cell” cancer therapy utilizes bacteria lacking their original chromosomes, preventing them from reproducing Their new gene circuits allow scientists to target tumors displaying certain surface antigens by having the SimCells and mini-SimCells bind to them with surface anti-biomarker nanobodies; then, the cells produce and release the anticancer. The whole process is highly controllable because the gene circuits are inducible regulated by a substance that “turns on” the expression of those genes and “turns it off” when its levels don’t reach a certain amount Thus, even commonly seen pathogens such as bacteria can be reprogrammed to be entirely beneficial for the body.

However, with innovation comes ethical and social implications. As a relatively new field, the regulation of the methods, uses, and products of synthetic biology should be clearly defined in order to ensure the utmost safety of the scientists and the public The field’s history also raises some biosecurity concerns. Although it is difficult to do so, American scientists synthesized an entire viral genome for the first time in 2002. It was the entirety of the polio virus’s genome, which brought up concerns about the misuse of synthetic biology to create biological weapons Since then, more federal regulations have been enacted to prevent such danger from happening While the field has potential to cause harm, scientists and regulators have worked to ensure everyone’s safety and bring much more beneficial results into the world.