3D printed next-generation synthetic biology hardware for sustainable food production and reduction of climate change

人类今天面临三大挑战。第一个目标是到2050年养活98亿人。第二是减缓气候变化。第三是减轻COVID 19等人畜共患病的生存威胁。COVID 19严重扰乱了致力于解决此类挑战的组织。然而，从COVID 19疫情中复苏带来了一代人一遇的机会，可以加快已经在实施的解决方案，带来巨大的经济和社会效益潜力。根据麦肯锡全球研究所2020年5月的一份报告，原则上，全球经济中多达60%的物质投入可以通过生物方式生产。这些投入中约有三分之一是生物材料，包括为食用而饲养的动物。改善食品生产方法将有助于我们应对当代最大的挑战。最有前途的新创新之一是人造肉。通过直接从细胞中培育所需的肉类，而不是种植动物及其所有相关的开销，我们可以用更少的资源生产肉类，并大大减少对环境的影响。例如，与对气候变化贡献最大的传统牛肉相比，人工养殖牛肉预计可减少74%-87%的气候变化排放。要使大众市场买得起人工养殖肉类，主要挑战是合成生物学研究的进步、扩大生产规模和降低配料成本。传统方法无法应对这些挑战，需要新一代强大的新生物硬件。BiologIC Technologies（英国剑桥）正在开发下一代生命科学自动化，并利用3D打印的数字优势。BiologIC的开创性和高度集成的数字硬件架构允许创建功能强大且价格合理的3D打印生物处理单元（“BPU”）。该项目将恢复因COVID 19中断的开发，并为合成生物食品生产提供高度创新的解决方案，降低新的大流行病的可能性，并提高下一代可持续食品供应链的弹性和本地化，从而减少气候变化的主要原因。

Humanity today faces three enormous challenges. The first is feeding 9.8 billion people by 2050\. The second is mitigating climate change. The third is mitigating the existential threat of zoonotic diseases such as COVID19\.COVID19 has significantly disrupted organisations that are working to solve such challenges. However, the recovery from COVID19 brings a once in a generation opportunity to accelerate solutions that were already in motion.The potential for beneficial economic and social impact is enormous. According to a May 2020 report from McKinsey Global Institute, as much as 60 percent of the physical inputs to the global economy could, in principle, be produced biologically. Around one-third of these inputs are biological materials, including animals bred for food.Improving food production methods will help us address the biggest challenges of our time. One of the most promising new innovations is cultivated meat. By cultivating only the desired meat directly from cells, rather than growing animals with all of their associated overhead, we can produce meat with fewer resources and significantly less environmental impact. For instance, compared with conventional beef which is one of the largest contributors to climate change, cultivated beef is estimated to reduce climate change emissions by 74%--87%.The main challenges for making cultivated meat affordable for mass markets are the advancement of synthetic biology research, scaling up production and reducing ingredient costs. These challenges are poorly served by classical approaches and require a new generation of powerful new biological hardware.BiologIC Technologies (Cambridge UK) is developing the next-generation of life science automation fabricated from, and exploiting, the digital benefits of 3D-printing. BiologIC's pioneering and highly integrated digital hardware architectures allow the creation of powerful and affordable 3D-printed bio-processing units ("BPUs"). These BPUs allow rapid development and execution of novel, high-value and high-volume biological workflows.The project will reinstate development that was disrupted by COVID19 and result in a highly innovative solution for synthetic biology food production, reducing the likelihood of new pandemics and increasing the resilience and localisation of a next-generation sustainable food supply chain that reduces a major cause of climate change.