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The vast potential of biotechnology in medicine and agriculture is generally recognised. Now biotechnology is turning to a third application--care of the environment.(1)
In the biotechnology debates of the last twenty years, particularly in Europe, there was a tendency to emphasise problems, real or conjectural, rather than to look for solutions--or to identify opportunities. Now, the mood is changing and the argument is beginning to perceive the large potential of biotechnology to contribute to the prevention, detection and remediation of environmental pollution and degradation. Biotechnology is thus moving into its third, and possibly most important, domain. After health care and pharmaceuticals--the first major sectors in which it was used--and the applications in agriculture and food which soon followed, the environment could become a priority of the life sciences and technologies.
But it has taken more than two decades for modern biotechnology to begin to have a noticeable impact in environmental protection. The delay is somewhat surprising, considering that the earliest and most widespread applications of biotechnology were washer-water treatment plants, all based upon the capacity of micro-organisms to degrade organic waste. These facilities were developed during the nineteenth century as it became clear that the dumping of wastes into rivers threatened both human health and aquatic life. Such technologies have thus been of enormous benefit to mankind--yet the past century has seen only minor changes in the fundamental designs of the original sewage treatment plants, and in the way micro-organisms a used. In a substantial number of cases, these facilities fail to meet modern requirements or the performance criteria now demanded.
One reason for this slow progress is that biotechnology in general is driven large by scientific research initiatives ('science push'), and environmental biotechnology in particular lacked the glamour of medical or agricultural applications. Scientists, students and research funds are more easily attracted to the new molecular biology that promises to cure cancer or to engineer high-yield rice than to the skills necessary to improve sewage disposal. Past differences in priorities are still visible in recent funding patterns: the federal budget of the United States, for example, planned to spend $83.3 million for environmental biotechnology R&D in 1993. This figure represents just 2.1% of federal funds spent for all bio-technological R&D. as compared with 42%...