Revista Digital Agua Simple – Agua y biodiversidad

Notas de agua - Revista digital Agua Simple

Water notes

Bioremediation, a new hope

Brainstorm

  • Contamination (heavy metals)
  • Sustainable
  • Environment
  • Ground
  • Hydrocarbons
  • Metabolism
  • Genetically modified organisms

Story

Once upon a time, on a small beach, I was walking through the sand and feeling the sea. I was so happy. 5 years later, I went to the same spot and I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. The beach where once I played soccer and was with my cousins, now it was full of contamination, bottles of pet and plastics in the sea. The air that I was breathing wasn’t the good old day’s air. This one smelled horrible and suffocated me a lot. Back in town this got me thinking and reflecting about how far we have come and destroyed and haven’t taken care of the environment. Then I talked to a biotechnology student and changed my mind. He told me that living organisms and the use of biology could help us to improve this society.

He couldn’t let that place become worse and worse, so he started to gather  biologists all across the world with the purpose of making something that could repair the damage that the contamination has dealt in that beach, that was a precious place.

Numerous months passed before one night of work without rest he and his science team created the perfect experiment to deal with contamination…

It was a machine that could make microorganisms to base their alimentation into toxic waste, so they could eat it and transform the waste into energy for the microorganism making all the waste decrease in a sustainable way.

It was a super idea but first they need to test it to make sure that the microorganism does make more disaster that the disaster the microorganism  needs to clean up.

They put some plastic bags and stagnant water in a box of glass so they can observe the process. Then they release the organism into the glass box, at first instance they do not notice any changes, but they keep both eyes if something happened, but the time pass and they got a little hungry so they left a couple of hours to eat and when the come back they saw something that will blow up their minds.

All the trash was gone and it was transformed into compost and the stagnant water was transformed into clean water (not potable but clean enough so the fish could live in). Excited about their new concluded experiment, the next day they run to the

beach to release the microorganisms to clean up the beach and after that they could pick up the rest of the recycled waste. Then the next day they come back and see that the beach was cleaned and free of major contamination, the days passed and the people started to go again to the beach to have fun but also with conscience so the beach does not get polluted again.

Also the mayor of the state where the beach was located wanted to give the biologists a prize because of their experiment that could and will clean up the entire pollution of the world making it sustainable and ending some disaster that can appear in the future.

Scientific information support

Stagnant water means water that has been standing still, often resulting in decreased oxygen levels and an increase in bacteria, parasites, and pests. This type of water can become a breeding ground for diseases and environmental degradation.

Central theme

The use of genetically modified organisms can bring important changes in order to transform contaminated areas or treat pollution in the environment by its metabolism.

By taking into consideration this innovative approach, we could be able to rehabilitate contaminated areas and tackle pollution. This would introduce genetic modifications into microorganisms, bacteria and plants in order to enhance their ability to metabolize and neutralize pollutants or contaminants.

The use of genetically modified organisms can bring important changes in order to transform contaminated areas or treat pollution in the environment by its metabolism.

The use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) would bring a better looking future for next generations by treating contamination and pollution with new biotechnologies.

Main idea

  • Bioremediation, desintoxication the environment.

Secondary ideas

  • Microorganisms bioremediation. This would explore modified genetically microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria in order to degrade pollutants and their degradation. “Some of the applications may contribute to addressing some current global problems, such as environmental contamination by hydrocarbons and synthetic plastics” (Muriel-Millán, Millán-López, & Pardo-López, 2021). This idea would also examine the microorganism or aquatic plants with the purpose of changing them genetically. “We discuss new literature regarding the isolation and characterization of marine bacterial strains able to degrade hydrocarbons and petroleum-based plastics, and species able to produce biosurfactants” (Muriel-Millán et aI., 2021).
  • Develop metabolic capabilities in microorganisms. By modifying genetically organisms its metabolism would treat contaminants and pollutes of the environment “Marine Bacteria have a great metabolic capacity to degrade hydrocarbons in harsh conditions” (Muriel-Millán et aI., 2021).

Conclusion

Contamination and pollution of the environment, nowadays it’s considered one of the biggest problems in the age of high technology.

The use of innovative biotechnologies and sustainable development goals, make this problem less dangerous for future generations, it is very important to know about how the contamination and pollution can be treated in order to change the direction.

Bioremediation is the use of organisms in order to remove contaminants and unwanted substances. Clean the environment.

The approach to this biotechnology will change the environmental challenges we are facing all today.

Together let’s use new technologies and analyze the role of microorganisms in order to change matter.

References and sources

Da Silva, E. J. (2004). The colours of biotechnology: science, development and humankind. Electronic Journal of Biotechnology, 7(3), 01-02. Recovered from http://www.scielo.cl

Diaz, V., Rodriges, A., Monroy, O., & Carvajal, L. (2022). Synthetic biology: A new era in hydrocarbon bioremediation. Processes, 10(4), 712 Recovered from https://doi.org/10.3390/pr10040712

Medić, A. B., & Karadžić, I. M. (2022). Pseudomonas in environmental bioremediation of hydrocarbons and phenolic compounds- key catabolic degradation enzymes and new analytical platforms for comprehensive investigation. World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology, 38(10), 165. Recovered from https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-022-03349-7

Muriel-Millán, L. F., Millán-López, S., & Pardo-López, L. (2021). Biotechnological applications of marine bacteria in bioremediation of environments polluted with hydrocarbons and plastics. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 105(19), 7171-7185. Recovered from https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11569-4

University of Puerto Rico. (2024). ¿Qué es la biotecnología? Recovered from https://www.uprm.edu/biotech

Universidad ORT Uruguay. (s.f.). Usos y aplicaciones de la biotecnología en la actualidad. Recovered from https://fi.ort.edu.uy/blog/usos-y-aplicaciones-de-la-biotecnologia

Vega, R. (2020, December 8). ¿Qué es la biotecnología? Recovered from https://fusades.org/