In the 20th century, World War II prompted a technological revolution. Physicists and engineers came together to develop atomic energy, rockets, aircraft, remote sensing devices, and more—items that would transform the world. Although their research was eventually adapted for civilian use, much of their work was funded by governments in the service of violence.
Today, the world is once again on the cusp of an innovation boom—with a few key differences, according to The Age of Living Machines, a forthcoming book from Susan Hockfield, president emerita at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The next tech revolution won’t be led by physicists, but by biologists. And this time, she writes, “we will be motivated not by the threat of war but the promise of peace.”
Take, for example, a virus-grown battery that uses biological materials to store energy. This idea for an organic battery that produces minimal toxic waste was first proposed by Angela Belcher in 1999 when she was a junior professor of chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. At the time, colleagues called her notion “insane.” Today, Belcher, who has since won a MacArthur Genius Prize, runs a lab at MIT that grows natural batteries made from specially-designed viruses, which are being developed to power everything from technological devices to cars. Her cross-disciplinary lab brings together scientists from around the world with a range of interests, all of whom are driven to solve the perplexing problem of how to store energy in a clean, compact way.
Hockfield’s book argues that this kind of cross-disciplinary work, and especially the convergence of biology and engineering, will yield solutions to major crises. In her view, as the human race booms to a population of 9.5 billion by 2020, we are facing several crises, most notably too little energy and insufficient supplies of potable water, medicine, and food. The Age of Living Machines is hopeful about our ability to ward off these crises. But Hockfield’s concern is that conditions in the US today make it more difficult to generate funding for long-term, collaborative research. Investors seek quick returns, and the government is limiting immigration programs that have previously brought together researchers from around the world.
Eat, drink, and be merry
The book makes a convincing case for the creative solutions offered by biotech. Hockfield sees a water crisis as one of the greatest threats to human health and well-being. Freshwater is critical to human survival and crop growth, yet only 5% of the Earth’s water is fresh and potable.
In order to generate enough water for the booming global population, we need to convert existing sources into drinkable fluid. Up until the late 20th century, that was unthinkable. But it turns out that the answer to our water problems may lie in a tiny protein generated by the human body—one that was unknown until about 1990.
Scientists had long been mystified by the way water travels from one cell in the human body to another. There seemed to be some channel that allowed water and nothing else to permeate cell membranes; a filter of some sort. Yet this mystery filtering method remained unidentified for a long time.
In the late 1980s, however, a physician and researcher named Peter Agre at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center made an important breakthrough. Agre was working on another problem when he discovered a protein that seemed to serve as a water channel for cells. He identified the specific DNA strands that coded for the mystery protein and copied these, then injected them into another cell. With this protein injection, he produced the channels that transported water across the cells’ membranes. Agre named the newly-discovered water transport protein “aquaporin.”
Since about 2000, researchers have been working on turning aquaporin into a tool for mass water purification. By replicating the protein and adjusting its strength, they are already finding uses for the tiny protein. In 2015, Danish astronauts used aquaporin-based membranes to filter water they drank in space. Currently, researchers in China and Denmark are working together on creating a home water filter system that uses protein-based membranes. And Aquaporin A/S, a Danish company that has been developing these protein-based potable water solutions, is even working on creating huge filters made of the organic material that would separate waste water and runoff from the rest of water, allowing farmers and industrial producers to reuse their H20 after filtration.
Hockfield argues in her book that the discovery of aquaporin protein, and its transformation into an actual tool with industrial uses, wouldn’t be possible without extremely imaginative scientists who think across disciplines. And those creative scientists’ findings need to be turned into actual tools by industrialists with a very long view and an interest in advancing humanity. She points out that investors in Aquaporin A/S had to be sold not only on the project’s potential to generate wealth, but also on the possibility that it could be a “world-sustaining advance for water purification.”
In order to develop the biotech that can help overcome the challenges of the future, governments worldwide will have to incentivize this long-term approach to investment and commits to funding peaceful research. Hockfield suggests that tax benefits would be one effective method of encouraging private investment. She also argues that “immigration is one of the powerful drivers of innovation,” warning that limiting entry and exchange programs for scientists, as the US has done, will hamper work on world-saving innovations.
Whoever wants to lead the coming biotech revolution, whether in the US or beyond, will need to commit to a creative cross-disciplinary research approach starting now, and be willing to put much time in. Hockfield believes our best hope for surviving and thriving as a human race lies in scientific convergence. She asks, “Can we inspire this nation and all nations to invent a new path that mitigates the threats of drowning in rising seas, thirsting for want of clean water, dying prematurely from undiagnosed and untreated disease, living impeded by disability, and suffering political instability precipitated by insufficient affordable food?”
Hockfield believes that the answer to her question is “yes.” If we understand the potential of biotech, whether or not we’re scientists ourselves, we’ll realize that nature itself can help us solve the problems we face.