Synthetic circuit designs for Earth terraformation

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of engineered synthetic organisms as a novel approach to mitigate climate change effects and restore ecosystems, emphasizing design principles that ensure safety and effectiveness for planetary terraforming.

Contribution

It proposes specific design principles for synthetic organisms that act as biosafety firewalls, enabling their safe use in ecosystem restoration and climate mitigation efforts.

Findings

Design principles create effective biosafety firewalls.

Engineered organisms could enhance carbon sequestration.

Controlled models support feasibility of proposed schemes.

Abstract

Mounting evidence indicates that our planet might experience runaway effects associated to rising temperatures and ecosystem overexploitation, leading to catastrophic shifts on short time scales. Remediation scenarios capable of counterbalancing these effects involve geoengineering, sustainable practices and carbon sequestration, among others. None of these scenarios seems powerful enough to achieve the desired restoration of safe boundaries. We hypothesise that synthetic organisms with the appropriate engineering design could be used to safely prevent declines in some stressed ecosystems and help improving carbon sequestration. Such schemes would include engineering mutualistic dependencies preventing undesired evolutionary processes. We hypothesise that some particular design principles introduce unescapable constraints to the engineered organisms that act as effective firewalls. Testing this designed organisms can be achieved by using controlled bioreactor models and accurate computational models including different scales (from genetic constructs and metabolic pathways to population dynamics). Our hypothesis heads towards a future anthropogenic action that should effectively act as Terraforming agents. It also implies a major challenge in the existing biosafety policies, since we suggest release of modified organisms as potentially necessary strategy for success.