The ELEMENTAL Hub aims to provide a powerful suite of engineering biology techniques and approaches to develop sustainable and efficient solutions to address many of the environmental challenges facing our planet concerning metal waste and metal-scarcity. The environmental challenges associated with metal contamination from industrial waste, mining, nuclear processing, or electronic waste are quite distinct and require a coordinated interdisciplinary approach to address them effectively. Metal contamination also results from inefficient metal uptake from growth media in cellular and microbial fermentation processes used in industrial biotechnology, which pollute the product and waste streams.
Our hub for Environmental Engineering Biology will focus on developing metal and process-specific solutions to these environmental challenges by leveraging our expertise in synthetic biology and metal cell biology. Our team has successfully engineered bacteria and cells that can selectively transport and deliver metals to targeted cellular locations, resulting in improved catalytic efficiency and processing capabilities. Additionally, these engineered cells can reduce the concentration of metal pollutants in contaminated waste materials by sequestering the metal either on the cell surface or within the cell, thereby capturing them for re-use within a circular economy. Similar approaches have been developed for the removal of radioactive nuclides from nuclear waste as well as the recovery of rare earth elements from recycled phones. Through our innovative approach to engineering biology, coupled with stakeholder engagement and public policy frameworks, our hub will develop sustainable and efficient solutions to address the environmental challenges posed by metal contaminated wastes.