Pills from Plastic, Saving Species + 3-D Printing on Mars

🍦Vanilla’s Sticky Situation

Poor vanilla. The flavor everyone loves to snub as too common is now becoming ever rarer, under threat from climate change and habitat loss for its native pollinators. Bethany Brookshire reports for Science News on the changing conditions.

🌸Whither Vanilla?

Let’s start with a primer on where vanilla comes from. While the vast majority of the world’s vanilla is made in Madagascar, that cultivated strain was introduced from Mexico. In Madagascar, vanilla flowers are pollinated by hand, while Mexican vanilla comes from an orchid pollinated by bees. Today in Mexico, warming conditions are threatening both the plant and its pollinators.

Enter Charlotte Watteyn, an ecologist at the research university KU Leuven in Belgium and the University of Costa Rica. She and her team created computer simulations to examine habitats for 11 vanilla species and their bees, and found that without intervention, it’s likely that by 2050 the plant and the bees may not be able to coexist in the same climate. If natural Mexican vanilla dies off, the effects will range from economic (loss of income for Mexican farmers, higher costs of Madagascar and Tahitian vanilla), ecological (loss of a vital food source for hummingbirds), cultural (loss of a longstanding tradition), and culinary (more synthetic vanilla).

👩🏼‍🔬Beyond the Bees: The Imperative for Pollination Alternatives

From genetically engineering plants to be less reliant on specific pollinators to biologically enhancing existing pollinator populations, scientists are on the hunt for alternative pollination solutions. For example, researchers at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, including Steven Jacobsen and Jennifer Doudna (the Nobel laureate who co-developed CRISPR),have designed gene editing systems that can be delivered into plant reproductive cells using plant viruses. While the focus of the work is on accelerating crop breeding for traits like yield and climate adaptation, the ability to precisely edit plant genes in ways that can be passed to future generations opens paths for modifying floral characteristics to attract pollinators.

🐝Bee-ing there for the bees

The market for advanced pollination solutions is buzzing. Here are two biotech companies applying various technologies to help the bees:

• Beeflow, founded in Argentina and now headquartered in Los Angeles, is a biotech startup that creates and manages pollination programs for farmers. Their proprietary technologies combine the science of crop pollination, bee biology, and chemical ecology. Think molecules that help train bees to pollinate specific crops, and plant-based bee diets that support bees’ immune systems. They’ve raised over $9 million, most recently from a 2021 Series A round.
  
• BloomX, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, develops AI solutions for growers to increase crop pollination yields. They also sell Robee, a robotic pollinator. It mimics the buzz of the bumblebee, and its mechanical arms — mounted on an electric vehicle — vibrate blueberry plant stems to release pollen grains onto the flower’s female reproductive organ. The company closed an $8 million seed round in 2023.

The future of our food system — and our favorite flavors — increasingly depends on saving the bees.

---

💊 The Ultimate Recycling: Pain Relief from Plastic Waste

hat if the plastic bottle you just tossed could one day become a key ingredient in your medicine cabinet? While we’re looking to ingest less (not more!) plastic, new research shows it’s technically possible to recycle it in novel ways, such as creating the precursors for pain relievers. Skyler Ware reports on this circular economy innovation.

🧪 How it works

Stephen Wallace, an engineering biologist at the University of Edinburgh, genetically modified Escherichia coli bacteria to metabolize polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the ubiquitous plastic found in soda bottles and countless consumer goods. Wallace’s team successfully prepared a starting compound by chemically breaking down a plastic bottle ingredient and turning the plastic-based precursor into a molecule called para-aminobenzoic acid, or PABA. With additional genetic instructions, the bacteria converted the plastic into para-aminophenol (PAP), a precursor to acetaminophen. In a subsequent experiment, the team further engineered the bacteria to directly produce PAP from PET plastic itself.

Whew, that was a lot of biochemistry. Why does it matter?

🪜Building the Bio-Bridge: From Lab Bench to Industrial Scale

While theoretically possible, pills derived from plastic are not likely to hit the shelves any time soon. The lab-scale demonstration is quite an achievement, but manufacturing such solutions at industrial levels presents its own set of challenges. Scaling biotech operations from petri dish to commercial production requires significant investment in infrastructure: specialized bioreactor facilities, advanced fermentation technologies, and a highly skilled workforce. Entities that can bridge this gap, providing the platforms and support for biotech companies to bring their innovations to market, are key.

🏢Fueling the Future of Biomanufacturing

Several organizations have recently announced efforts to accelerate the industrialization of biotech solutions, including startups that tackle plastic waste and sustainable chemical production.

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a U.S. government agency that supports fundamental research and education across all non-medical fields of science and engineering. In June, they announced a $25.5 million investment in research to drive new manufacturing technologies and talent pipelines that will directly support scientific advancements, technological infrastructure, and workforce development.
  
• The World Economic Forum’s “Technology Pioneers” program recognizes early-stage companies globally that are involved in the design, development, and deployment of new technologies and innovations. They recently announced the inclusion of three biotech companies in their 2025 accelerator cohort. Here are some biotech-focused recipients of the WEF program’s support.

At any scale, the prospect of turning pollution into plastic is good medicine.

---

🌱 3-D Printing the Path to Living on Mars

Inhabiting Mars could begin with sustaining more basic life forms in 3-D printed chambers. Erin Garcia de Jesús reports for SN on how green algae thrived in Mars-like conditions from inside bioplastic habitats.

♻ Self-Sustaining Loops

Cultivating non-human life on Mars may help us one day inhabit the Red Planet. A recent experiment demonstrated not only how to sustain plant life in Mars-like conditions, but also how to create a self-sustaining loop of providing building materials.

Researchers* from Harvard University and the University of Edinburgh detailed the experiment on July 2 in the journal Science Advances. They grew green algae in 3-D printed beakers made of polylactic acid, a common bioplastic used for compostable utensils. The beakers block deleterious ultraviolet radiation, but let in sufficient light for the algae to photosynthesize. To jumpstart this process on Mars, all an astronaut would need is a 3-D printer and algal cells.

The algae then could produce materials from within the beaker with which inhabitants could build their own structures. In other words, Martian transplants wouldn’t need to rely on bulky construction supplies shipped from Earth.

🖨 Printer’s Progress

The world’s 3-D printing industry was valued at over $20 billion in 2023 and is projected to hit over $88 billion by 2030. This lucrative industry already has touched space exploration in more ways than incubating plant life. From building modular rockets to constructing shelter, bringing a 3-D printer into space may come in quite handy for exploring the final frontier.

🌟3-D Printing Space

• Relativity Space : Founded in 2015, this Long Beach, Calif.–based Series F company built and launched the first 3‑D printed rocket, Terran 1. Though the rocket didn’t reach space, this endeavor demonstrated that 3‑D printed objects can withstand the incredible speed and power necessary to launch. The company has received a total of $1.4 billion in funding, including $20 million in May 2023.
  
• ICON: This Austin, Texas–based company founded in 2017 3-D prints structures like housing and defense facilities here on Earth. Its space-based construction further aims to make use of lunar or Martian dust, or regolith, as building material. ICON has raised a total of $507.5 million over 7 funding rounds, most recently bringing in $56 million in Series C funding this past February.
  
• AI SpaceFactory: Since 2017, AI SpaceFactory has been innovating the future of infrastructure on our moon and beyond with 3-D printing. Based in Huntsville, Alabama, this private company received first prize in the NASA 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge, which entailed designing and building a prototype Martian habitat. In 2023, they launched their robotic 3-D printer, ASTRA.

The business of 3-D printing could bring space travel into a whole new dimension.

🧬De-extinction Efforts: Conservation Through Genetic Sequencing

From dinos to dodos, our planet’s most wondrous creatures sometimes meet a permanent end. But genetic sequencing might help preserve dwindling species, such as the deerlike saola, Tom Metcalfe reports for SN.

🦄Saving Saolas

Known as Asia’s unicorn, the rare saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) is native to Vietnam and Laos’s mountainous rainforests. The last known living saola made its appearance in 2013. The saola may already be a thing of the past; the most optimistic experts believe that fewer than 100 may still exist. So in an effort to conserve any remaining saolas, more than two dozen researchers throughout Europe, Asia and the U.S. used DNA from 26 saola hunting trophies to derive the first complete saola genome. Published on May 5 in the journal Cell, this data serves as a reference genome that helps experts understand the creature’s ancestry as well as their possible locations.

With a reference genome for comparison, genetic material shed into waterways and habitats might pinpoint any surviving saolas’ whereabouts. This could help researchers establish a captive breeding program. The team estimates they need 12 saolas to succeed.

💀Investing in the Endangered — Before It’s Too Late

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List states that more than 47,000 species of organisms from the Malaysian giant turtle to corals are in danger of extinction — that’s 28% of assessed species. By investing in conservation biotechnologies, the private sector could rescue irreplaceable animals from the brink of nonexistence.

🧪 Corporate Conservation

• Colossal Biosciences*: This Texas-based company founded in 2021 made waves earlier this year with the debut of their transgenic Colossal woolly mouse, a rodent whose genome had been altered through genetic engineering. And this past April, Colossal heralded the arrival of what they called their de-extinct dire wolves, which met with controversy. Billing itself as the “world’s first and only de-extinction company,” Colossal seeks to apply extensive genetic knowledge to generate organisms that physically and genetically resemble extinct species. Their research focuses on the extinct woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial. This past January Colossal announced $200 million raised in Series C funding, with a total of $448.1 million raised.
  
• Revive & Restore: This nonprofit based in Sausalito, Calif. was founded in 2012. It offers funding to catalyze early-stage biotech research focused on conservation. In particular they specialize in genetic rescue, which entails boosting genetic diversity in critically endangered species. This past May, it received $50,000 from the Bezos Earth Fund.
  
• ViaGen Pets and Equine: Founded in 2002, this Texas-based company clones popular pet animals like cats and dogs, as well as horses and ferrets. The firm has also made a foray into the conservation sphere by cloning an endangered Przewalski horse. Cloning technology, while ethically complex, may be useful as another way to preserve critically endangered animals.

Many more species besides the saola face extinction, but startups poised to help save them are multiplying.

*Fun fact! Each of the two projects marked with * above relies on the scientific contributions of OG geneticist and multi-disciplinary serial entrepreneur George Church. 🦸‍♂️

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Society for Science and Science News Media Group assumes no liability for any financial decisions or losses resulting from the use of the content in this newsletter. Society for Science and Science News Media Group do not receive payments from, and do not have any ownership or investment interest in, the companies mentioned in this newsletter. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.