Challenge

Biotech startup ideas that don't yet exist but should

Image credit: Faria Anzum / unsplash.com

Darko Savic Aug 19, 2020

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Necessity

Is the problem still unsolved?

Conciseness

Is it concisely described?

Bounty for the best solution

Provide a bounty for the best solution

Bounties attract serious brainpower to the challenge.

Can we come up with biotech startup ideas worth building a career around? What problems could be solved and who would the customers be? What doesn't yet exist but should?

In the creative contributions section below, use the title field to describe the startup in one sentence. Then briefly describe how it would work, its vision, goals, what problems it would solve, and for whom.

Please keep everything brief and concise.

biotech startup ideas business ideas business ideas

Creative contributions

Phage therapy against antibiotic resistance

Nitish Mar 13, 2021

With growing instances of antibiotic resistance dissemination in pathogenic microbes, it is essential to search for new antibiotics or develop new methodologies to tackle this growing havok. Phage therapy, i.e. neutralization of bacteria by phages (bacteriophages) by scavenging, is an innovative idea. Although it is not a new concept, due to some misconceptions and few known health implications, the use of phage therapy is still in oblivion     . Biotechnological innovations can be employed to develop efficient phages for not only taming the drug-resistant microbes but also to treat several other ailments.

[1]https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/bacteriophages-an-answer-to-antibiotic-resistance-67854

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Darko Savic4 years ago

According to this video https://youtu.be/qTqJITdpMko bacteriophage treatment is quite popular in Georgia

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Nitish4 years ago

Few countries like Georgia permit such treatments against certain diseases. Therefore, peoples from all around the world visit these countries. However, there is an urgent need to reconsider our traditional thinking about remedies like phage therapy. 

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Plant tissue culture kits for growing medicinal, nutraceutical, and endangered plants at home

Felix Krengel Aug 29, 2020

Plant tissue culture (PTC) is a biotechnological technique that allows for the mass propagation, cloning, and genetic modification of plants. It can also be used to produce primary and secondary metabolites from isolated cell lines or callus, an amorphous cell mass in some way similar to a tumor. The donor tissue, called explant, is taken from a living plant, disinfected, and then transferred to an artificial growth medium under sterile conditions. If the explant receives the right stimuli, its cells will divide and spread over the medium, forming the already mentioned callus. The latter can now be treated with certain plant growth regulators (PGR) and so-called elicitors in order to produce secondary metabolites. Alternatively, whole plants can be produced by inducing organogenesis or somatic embryogenesis. While these processes require certain lab equipment and scientific knowledge, once established, the cultures could be maintained at home by anyone. Thus, people could buy the PTC kit and either use the compounds produced by the cultures or transfer in vitro grown plantlets to non-sterile soil conditions, in order to grow whole plants with known genotypic and phenotypic characteristics. With regard to endangered species, private households could contribute to their preservation by growing them at home.

https://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/pb/article/view/8385

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Upcycle organic waste into food supplements

Loukik Arora Sep 12, 2020

Organic waste (including food waste) is usually rich in fundamental nutrients like proteins (e.g. spent oilseeds) amino acids, carbohydrates, and such. An ideal combination of biotechnology (using genetically engineered microbes) and food processing techniques to extract or upcycle these nutrients into food supplements such as protein supplements or energy supplements can positively address multiple challenges:
Move closer to zero waste and circular economy
Address malnutrition (PEM) and by extension enable growth in the lowest socio-economic strata

Some of the steps in this direction have been taken by startups such as:
REGRAINED - Spent grain (after making beer) to bread and protein bars
PLANETARIANS - Spent sunflower oilseed into high protein chips

A dream black-box would be a small (maybe suitcase-sized) unit that would be able to upcycle any organic waste into usable food supplements.

Some interesting work in the area may be found on the following here

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Mass culturing the most potent nematodes for pest control

Subash Chapagain Nov 25, 2020

Due to concerns of environmental and public health, the need for using biological pest control as opposed to chemicals is rising every year. Nematodes have been reported to be one of the alternatives that can be used as biological controllers of different insect pests that cause a massive yield loss each year worldwide.
Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are such soil-dwelling, lethal insect parasites coming from the phylum Nematoda, under families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae. These parasitic microscopic creatures have been proved to be the most effective biological control organisms of soil and above-ground pests     . Been known since as early as 17th century, the usefulness of nematodes was realised only after 1930s for pest control.

Some key features that make Nematodes excellent candidates as pest controllers:
EPNs and the bacterial associated with them are proven to be safe to warm-blooded vertebrates, including humans.     
They are pretty quick in their actions. While most of the biological agents require days or weeks to kill the host, nematodes can kill insects usually in 24-48 hours.
They are easy and cost-friendly to culture. They live from several weeks up to months in the infective stage. They are able to attack numerous insect species, and they are cosmopolitan in occurrence (Antarctica being the only exception.)     
Not just for soil applications, nematodes have been successfully used to control the leaf eating caterpillars like Tuta absoluta, Spodoptera littoralis, Heicoverpa armigera, Pieri brassicae on several crops.
EPN application doesn’t require safety precautions like wearing masks and other equipment, hence rendering lesser associated occupational hazards.
So, a startup idea would be to screen for and select the best species/variants of nematodes for against the insect pests that infest the major crops worldwide and start mass culturing them and selling them. There are already some existing businesses, but the ones tailored to crop and soil-specific pests would really be profitable and useful.

[1]Kaya H.K., Gaugler R. 1993. Entomopathogenic nematodes. Annual Review of Entomology, 38: 181–206.

[2]Boemare N.E., Laumond C., Mauleon H. 1996. The entomopathogenic nematode-bacterium complex: biology, life cycle and vertebrate safety. Biocontrol Science Technology, 6: 333–346.

[3]Griffin C.T., Downes M.J., Block W. 1990. Test of Antarctic soils for insect parasitic nematodes. Antarctic Science, 2: 221–222.

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Shireesh Apte2 years ago

I like this. If I can nematode the -food chain -moles that have been digging around and under my home's foundation, that would make me and many a homeowner happy.

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Manel Lladó Santaeularia4 years ago

Would there be a risk of the nematodes expanding outside of the area where they are supposed to work, and potentially damaging the wildlife insect populations? Could there be a way to avoid that, maybe by engineering those nematodes to be sterile?

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Subash Chapagain4 years ago

Manel Lladó Santaeularia Thanks for this thoughtful comment. In my knowledge, there is always a risk of spilling into the natural world. However, this could be handled if we could apply genetic tools to design the nematodes that specifically target the pest insects and not the others. We could look into the biomarkers specific to the pests for this. Also, the application needs to be controlled and closely monitored so as to keep the nematodes contained in the agricultural field. 

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Self-replicating biodegradable utensils (growing spoons)

Dragan Otasevic Aug 21, 2020

What if plants could be engineered to grow parts with useful shapes looking like spoons, cups, take-away food packaging. These would then be harvested as-is, with minimal processing necessary and supplied as products to the eco-friendly food industry.

Alternatively this could also be done with cell cultures grown in specifically shaped moulds. But this would add more work to the process which is not idea. Spoons growing on trees would be amazing.

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Finding a way to induce suspended animation in humans

Jamila Aug 24, 2020

Observe the animal models of suspended animation (diapause, torpor, and hibernation) to find out the specific mechanisms involved and find out whether such a good thing could be activated in humans!

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

This will be useful for trips into space!

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Darko Savic4 years ago

I'm trying to imagine a company offering this as a service. Who would their end customers be? Some things that come to mind: long-duration travel (trips that take more than several hours), people who are terminally ill or in serious pain while waiting for the cure which is still some time away, people in prison - although suitable candidates would probably not be eligible:)

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Jamila 4 years ago

Oh yes! It could benefit various people. It would be great for long-distance travel like in space!

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Cancer cell sponge

Muhammad M Rahman Feb 19, 2021

The main and arguably best way to treat cancer is to cut the tumour out but there is always the chance that some of the cancer cells have migrated out of the original tumour, thus resulting in new tumours developing if they remain. What if we could insert a sort of migrating cancer cell sponge into the area after the original surgery? The sponge would have drugs, growth factors or chemokines that attract the remaining cancer cells into the sponge which you remove after a number of months. Sponges could be frequently changed and the cells they collect counted to give an indicator of whether the patient is clear or not.

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

Interesting thought! To add to what Juran suggested, incubating the cancer cells with a material that attracts cancer cells may help them grow. Instead of simply attaching to the sponge, the cells may grow and form a tumor on the sponge. The surgery for the removal of the sponge might, therefore, leave more cancer cells in the tissue. Also, how advisable is it to perform multiple surgeries on the same area in a time frame of a few months?

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jnikola4 years ago

Interesting idea! In my opinion, two important things need to be resolved here.

How would you ensure that a foreign object in the tissue doesn't provoke an inflammatory response or produce clots? Did you have something big as few cells or something bigger in mind?

How would you attract metastatic cells? I haven't heard of chemotaxis of metastatic cells, but since they have preferences towards certain tissues sometimes, it could maybe be possible. Do you have an example of cancer cells moving towards a concentration gradient of something maybe? That would be a cool thing to see.

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Plants that notify when they encounter specific chemicals in the groundwater

Shubhankar Kulkarni Feb 04, 2021

Researchers at MIT transformed spinach plants into sensors that send a mail when they encounter nitroaromatics in the groundwater. Nitroaromatics are often used in explosives like landmines. The plants detect the compounds and signal chemically. The signals are read by an infrared camera and an email is sent to the authors.     

This technology can be expanded to make plants detect a number of chemicals in the groundwater like:
Detect rare minerals in the soil to initiate mining
Detect groundwater
Detect oil (I am not sure)
Detect hazardous chemicals/ pollutants

[1]Wong, M., Giraldo, J., Kwak, SY. et al. Nitroaromatic detection and infrared communication from wild-type plants using plant nanobionics. Nature Mater 16, 264–272 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4771

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jnikola4 years ago

That's a really cool idea. Plants are the best biomarkers of the environment and its elements - the air, water, and the soil. Since the quality of everything we consume depends on the quality of those three, I think it's important to develop more techniques like this.

I found two examples of similar technologies that could be (combinedly) used for the same purpose.

A group of scientists recently combined plant nanosensors and Raman spectroscopy which led to the development of a portable screening and analytics system. As the authors say "the system would allow farmers to adjust fertilizer and water usage, based on internal responses within the plant, to optimize growth, driving cost efficiencies in resource utilization." [1]

Although it started as an artistic, therapeutic and educational project, this next example could help guide the research in the direction you proposed. After 50 years of researching plant communication, Damanhur (www.damanhur.org) developed an instrument able to perceive the electromagnetic variations from the surface of plant leaves to the root system and translate them into sound [2]. This instrument, powered with the increasing power of AI, could lead to next-generation agriculture.

[1] https://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=37773
[2] https://www.musicoftheplants.com

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Cell Cleansing Therapy

Jamila Aug 20, 2020

Find a way to clear neurotoxic protein aggregates and prevent the build-up of plaque with a cell cleansing therapy, maybe methods that can stimulate junk removal processes could be used for this.

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Darko Savic4 years ago

I would sign up for such therapy on a yearly basis:)

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Jamila 4 years ago

I would too! It would be amazing!

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Mouth microbiota modification therapy to protect your teeth better than tooth paste

Darko Savic Aug 21, 2020

A 2 component product:
1. Eradicate the existing oral pathogen species with matching bacteriophage viruses. (mouthwash)
2. Inoculate the mouth with beneficial bacteria (chewable tabs) that have been engineered to kill and outcompete the pathogen species. 

This has been described here

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Fully automated and autonomous mouse lab

Dragan Otasevic Aug 22, 2020

Develop a fully automated and autonomous mouse lab that can hold several mice (different sized models). The lab should be self-sufficient (food, water, cleaning, automated therapies) for the life duration of mice. Place and forget, monitor progress via webcams, and sensors.

This would be supplied to research labs. More details here

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Apply Bacteria to the Scalp for Hair Regeneration

Jamila Aug 31, 2020

Find out if there are any bacteria that promote hair regeneration. Then select these beneficial species for a cream that can be applied to your scalp for hair growth. 

I've written it in more detail here: https://brainstorming.com/ideas/apply-bacteria-to-the-scalp-for-hair-regeneration/21

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Darko Savic4 years ago

Also, engineer one of the bacterial species usually found in the scalp microbiota to secrete something beneficial to the scalp.

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Sugar Plastic

Daniel - Sep 02, 2020

Sugar plastic. 
Ethanol biodegradable polymer  

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jnikola3 years ago

I am very interested to see if the bottle made from sugar plastic would release sugar into the liquid that is kept inside. :D

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Darko Savic4 years ago

This is definitely an area worth pursuing. Some big players have entered this market already. For example DuPont with their polyester-based polymer called Poly-Trimethylene Terephthalate (or PTT, under the commercial name SORONA). For a new startup entering the field the parameters to try to improve are: cost, properties, and degradability.

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A DIY phytochemical (essential oil) extraction kit

Subash Chapagain Sep 19, 2020

With time, the number of people that are seeking to grow their own herbs and medicinal plants is increasing. From peppermints to rosemary  and basils, these easy to grow plants are rich in a lot of phytochemical compounds and essential oils like flavonoids and terpenoids, and antioxidants as well.  However, to get the full benefit of these natural reservoirs of medicinally important compounds, we need some precisely formulated mixture of solvents and chemicals, assisted by a series of physical/mechanical processes for the oil extraction.

Hence, one promising start-up would be to sell easy-to-do phytochemical extraction kits that would enable the herb growers to prepare their own crude extracts of essential oils.  The kit can contain the following different components:

1. Crusher/ grinder- for making fine powder of the plant parts like flowers and leaves 
2. Distillation apparatus- for steam distillation to boil the plants until the essential oils separate from the plant and float on water. The oil can be later collected and stored separately in an amber or glass bottle.
3. Different kinds of solvents- for separating heat labile oils, solvent extraction is the best way that allows us to do phase separation of the immiscible oils (example of such solvents are methanol and ethanol)
4. Filtration apparatus- for preparing the final usable product and ensure maximum purity of the crude extract

Supplemented with how-to guide, this biotech product can prove beneficial for extracting oils from our own herb garden. It holds the possibility of saving thousands of rupees, all the while engaging the growers into a meaningful scientific experience.

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Designer microbiome

Darko Savic Sep 21, 2020

Genetically modify suitable microbial species that live in the big colon. Have them secrete perfume. - Voila, peppermint fart!

On a serious note, have a genetically modified species produce meds, vitamins, essential micronutrients, etc.

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mschiav32 years ago

UGA IGEM Team In 2013, was Working With Methanococus maripaludis Species To Make It Produce geranyol, the Smell Of Flowers. Methanococus is A knwone anaerobic Bacteria That lives In The Gut And In swampy Waste Lands.

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Darko Savic4 years ago

This came up:)

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Company that stores your data in the DNA

Shubhankar Kulkarni Nov 02, 2020

Create a company that has clients having enormous datasets. They can be converted into DNA using a conversion code. For example, the letter "A" can be some combination of the DNA bases A, T, G, and C. The same goes for all the letters and punctuation marks. Data on the computer is usually saved in a binary code. That makes the conversion to DNA even simpler:
Base A = 11
Base T = 10
Base G = 01
Base C = 00
Using this code, the data can be saved in a bacterial species (E. coli) and can be retrieved via DNA sequencing, whenever required. The advantages are that:
It adds a level of encryption to your data
Data maintenance costs are close to zero. E. coli thrives even in water.
There is a significant conversion cost though but once converted, the maintenance is minimal.

For more information, visit the idea page.

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Povilas S2 years ago

I like the idea, but how would you put a biological-wise "random" code into a living organism's genome and expect it to function normally to survive, replicate and effectively store the message to be retrieved later? Is it about putting the desired code in the "silent" regions of the genome?

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Shubhankar Kulkarni2 years ago

Povilas S Exactly! You can also flag the sequence by patterns of sequences that avoid the sequence from being transcribed into proteins. This way, no random and harmful misfolded proteins will be created in the cell. The sequence will only be copied during replication. Alternatively, you can add the sequence in a plasmid and insert the plasmid into the cell. The plasmid will carry the sequence and the genomic DNA will remain unaltered.

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Supplying foods with specific bacteria (probiotics)

Shubhankar Kulkarni Nov 23, 2020

For example, when manufacturing yogurt, there can be regular as well as probiotic yogurts. In the probiotic yogurts, there will be yogurts that contain only Ruminococcus or only Roseburia. This is because not all people require all the probiotic species. The need differs with age, sex, geographical location, and race. Hence, generalizing is not the solution. What we can do to simplify the manufacturing process and decrease the SKUs is to have yogurts that contain multiple bacterial species that are usually found to go together. Physicians can then prescribe the bacterial species that you need to take and then you buy those. There can be few other foods that can carry probiotics such as protein bars, coconut or almond milk, etc. for people intolerant to yogurt. Thank you, @Juran for getting this contribution into shape.

View this session for more information.

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Darko Savic4 years ago

David Sinclair spoke highly of Bravo probiotic yogurt. It contains 30ish species if I remember correctly. You get them in powder form and create your own yogurt at home. I made several batches. It tastes ok. Other than that, I have no noticeable results to report from it. 

There was something that did bother me in the manufacturer's instructions. They said to mix it with honey. But honey kills all live bacteria on contact (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FlzHiURdTs). It's an easy experiment to try. Any good enough microscope will do. I was surprised the yogurt manufacturer didn't know or failed to account for that.

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

Darko Savic Right. I am also a bit repulsive towards consuming bacterial species that come in the form of powders. The bacterial viability is greatly hampered (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643816301566). The use of different preservatives further affects viability. The reference cited in the previous sentence shows that the viability can be maintained with microencapsulation using Ca-alginate biopolymer. But I think it may further increase the cost of the powder.

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A novel endometriosis blood test

Jamila Feb 02, 2021

Current endometriosis diagnostic tools are lacking. A comprehensive blood test that can diagnose endometriosis and distinguish between the different endometriosis stages without requiring an invasive laparoscopy should be developed. You can find more information about the idea here. 

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Gene therapy to induce tooth re-growth

Darko Savic Oct 05, 2020

Here's a Trillion dollar idea. Gene therapy to induce 3rd dentition. 

Histology suggests that we may have the ability to generate a third dentition, but this potential is inhibited by yet unknown molecular mechanisms. The third dentition      begins to develop when the second successional lamina is formed from the developing permanent tooth in humans and usually regresses apoptotically. 

Targeted molecular therapy, might be a suitable approach in whole-tooth regeneration by the stimulation of the third dentition.

[1]Takahashi, K., Kiso, H., Murashima-Suginami, A. et al. Development of tooth regenerative medicine strategies by controlling the number of teeth using targeted molecular therapy. Inflamm Regener 40, 21 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41232-020-00130-x

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Povilas S2 years ago

Can third dentition be induced locally (I mean could we potentially use this to regenerate individual teeth or is it more likely that only the whole set of teeth would be regrown, just like with first and second dentition)? Because the latter case would not be convenient, although better than nothing.

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Remodeling adipose tissue to achieve weight loss

Manel Lladó Santaeularia Nov 23, 2020

Our organism has two types of adipose tisse with very different functions:
White adipose tissue (WAT) stores fat in cells known as adipocytes. Its main functions are insulation and energy storage. However, excess of WAT can result in insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, apart from other metabolic complications.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) shares an embryologic origin with muscle tissue, and its main function is thermogenesis through mitocondria-mediated lipid oxidation. BAT obtains lipids from the WAT and then burns them to generate heat.
While BAT is present in neonates, its presence is greatly reduced in adult life, being substituted mainly by WAT. Since BAT is able to burn lipids instead of accumulating them, being able to convert WAT into BAT would, in theory, lead to reduced lipid accumulation and weight loss, resulting in improvement of health conditions related to metabolism. This has been proven following different strategies in animal models     , but no approach applicable to patients has been brought forward yet.

If an easy treatment could turn part of your fat into fat-burning tissue that makes you go thinner, can you imagine how many people would be interested in it?

[1]Kuryłowicz, Alina, and Monika Puzianowska-Kuźnicka. “Induction of Adipose Tissue Browning as a Strategy to Combat Obesity.” International journal of molecular sciences vol. 21,17 6241. 28 Aug. 2020, doi:10.3390/ijms21176241

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

The treatment may need to be genetic since you want to "teach" the WAT to burn fat or teach the BAT to burn more fat. Also, burning more fat may lead to heat accumulation that may or may not have an outlet. I don't know whether simply burning fat without it being accompanied by physical exertion and the increase in the heart rate can stimulate sweating. Also, since liposuction has greatly advanced and is now minimally invasive, do we need to go through the pain of modifying the DNA (with all its side-effects) to have a similar effect?

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Manel Lladó Santaeularia4 years ago

Shubhankar KulkarniAll of them are very valid points. However, browning of adipose tissue can also be achieved by natural methods, like cold exposure, diet, exercise and microbiota changes. Maybe this could be supplemented with a local treatment that could help fasten this process. There is no need for gene editing (which I agree has far too many risks right now), but conventional gene therapy, microRNA delivery and other pharmacological approaches could achieve browning of adipose tissue. The deal with this is finding the best option and the best way of delivering it to the areas that we want to see an effect in.

For heat accumulation there shouldn't be a big problem, since our organism is great at termoregulating, and the loss of insulation from the white adiposte tissue would probably compensate for that.

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

Manel Lladó Santaeularia Thank you for the response! I think natural methods that you have suggested will be more time-, cost, and energy-friendly and safe. Regarding conversion to WAT, I think BAT is not as wide-spread in the body as WAT. BAT is highly localized to specific places and, therefore, may not be able to compensate for the insulation, or other functions performed locally by WAT. What do you think?

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Cure for allergies by eliminating the memory cells that produce the antibodies

Darko Savic Aug 19, 2020

Figure out a way to single out and eliminate the memory lymphocytes that produce the antibodies to specific allergens. Figure out a way to prevent the formation of new allergen-specific lymphocytes for the duration of the therapy. By doing so hopefully rid the body of allergy.

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Gene therapies to remove latent viruses

Darko Savic Aug 19, 2020

Here is a way to target Herpes simplex 1 virus https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17936-5

There are many other persistent viruses that could be targeted with similar methods

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One protocol to rule them all

christos stefanis Aug 29, 2020

Molecular-based techniques have the advantage of identifying direct a microorganism according to his gene characteristics as the size of the nucleic acid sequence. In general, a polymerase chain reaction is a method of amplifying a sequence of DNA or RNA using specific primers. Moreover, the resulting products may be further separated with the aid of electrophoresis techniques. Companies have a great diversity of protocols and methods to conduct PCR analysis with different mechanisms, protocols, and apparatus. An open-source library with a unique protocol to conduct PCR analysis with the same reagents which suit o every PCR device and laboratory would be of great interest. This protocol aim at simplifying the usage of this molecular tool, PCR

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Shubhankar Kulkarni4 years ago

Great idea! Even different labs perform different assays differently. They use different reagents, and they claim that their results might have something to do with the reagents they used and the protocols they followed. So, here is an idea (https://brainstorming.com/ideas/order-lab-reagents-using-study-protocols/47) for an online repository that lists the different reagents (their make and batch) a particular lab has used for the experiments. They also attach their protocols for others to reproduce the results.

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A database of super-genes and plasmid delivery service

Darko Savic Oct 15, 2020

As described here, this would be a growing database of super-genes that give the organism special abilities. The company would ship out ready-made plasmids with the genes.

A company doing this right would take a head start into the upcoming ara where DIY gene therapies will become a thing.

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Probiotic mix for hydroponic and aeroponic medium

Darko Savic Mar 13, 2021

Hydroponic/aeroponic food production is the future. This is pretty much the only way to keep the plants alive if they are to accompany us into space. Now is the time to get a head start and form a company that specializes in microbes that keep the hydroponic medium in optimal shape.

Create mixes of essential microbes that are added to the hydroponic medium. Use species that:
protect the plant from pathogen/parasitic microbes
aid it in the absorption of nutrients
help plants resist environmental stress
etc

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Engineered filter feeders that accumulate specific elements from rivers or sea

Darko Savic Jul 23, 2021

We posted a few ideas that focus on engineered filter feeders such as mollusks, clams, crustaceans, etc. that would then be used to filter rivers, or swimming pools, extract heavy metals, or mine for rare-earth elements from rivers and seas.

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Darko Savic3 years ago

I will update the above description in the morning when I post the "rare elements mining" idea :)

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Engineered epiphytic plants that require no watering and can be eaten whole

Darko Savic Sep 26, 2021

As described in this idea - genetically modify an epiphyte species of plant to make it an ideal harvest crop in areas affected by water scarcity. 

This would help sustain people in areas that are affected by water scarcity. It could be a no-maintenance harvest crop for any climate.

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mschiav32 years ago

Liquens would Be A Great Choice As Well. An association of Algae And Funghi That Needs Almost No Nutrients to Grow. Engineering The Algae to Produce More Digestable Molecules Like Carbohydrates and Proteins people Are Used To consume 

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Manipulate plants to attract beneficial insects

Spook Louw Aug 04, 2022

Instead of wasting resources by having to plant companion plants in your garden to attract necessary, beneficial insects. Perhaps we can find a way to manipulate plants to attract the insects we want by genetically modifying them to carry the traits found attractive by beneficial insects. 

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Genetically modified thermogenic plants to serve as domestic bio-heaters

Povilas S Oct 22, 2022

The idea is described in detail here. 

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Microbial strain bank for antibiotic producing microbes

Subash Chapagain Sep 02, 2020

South Asian geography, especially the Himalayan region is profoundly rich in its microbial ecology where the cryosphere is heavily loaded with many microorganisms that have a high biotechnological potential in terms of antimicrobial and bioactive metabolites production.      Many microbial and fungal species like Actinomycetes and Streptomycetes can be sampled and sourced from the various geographic locations in the whole region. After primary screening for antibiotic production     , the promising candidates can then be preserved and stored at the Microbial Strain Bank. Once the repository becomes large enough, these candidates can be further studied for optimal antibiotic production and then after confirming through secondary screening, conventional genetic engineering tools can be applied for industrial production of the target antibiotics. 

Since the natural environment has infinite genetic variants of these microbes, we can even develop models using AI and then specifically target locations with a higher probability of finding a better antibiotic producer. Once started, the idea can be extended from antibiotic production to other applications like bio-fertilizers and enzyme production as well.

About microbial strain banks:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4241729/

[1]Dhakar, K., & Pandey, A. (2020). Microbial Ecology from the Himalayan Cryosphere Perspective. Microorganisms, 8(2), 257. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8020257

[2]Sapkota, A., Thapa, A., Budhathoki, A., Sainju, M., Shrestha, P., & Aryal, S. (2020). Isolation, Characterization, and Screening of Antimicrobial-Producing Actinomycetes from Soil Samples. International journal of microbiology, 2020, 2716584. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/2716584

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Sell enzymes that transform wood into food for humans

Darko Savic Oct 18, 2021

Sell enzymes or wood transforming microbes so that people can do it at home in DIY bioreactors. In apocalypse prepping scenarios, people can stockpile enzymes/microbes, and firewood to eat and heat their homes. 
One-pot enzymatic conversion of pretreated biomass to starch through a non-natural synthetic enzymatic pathway composed of endoglucanase, cellobiohydrolyase, cellobiose phosphorylase, and alpha-glucan phosphorylase originating from bacterial, fungal, and plant sources.     
more about this here.
   

[1]Nonfood biomass to starch Chun You, Hongge Chen, Suwan Myung, Noppadon Sathitsuksanoh, Hui Ma, Xiao-Zhou Zhang, Jianyong Li, Y.-H. Percival Zhang Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2013, 110 (18) 7182-7187; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1302420110

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Marco Agudelo2 years ago

Yesterday I saw the news about the Alphafold achivement and I just search for a written sample     which opens a broad new door into the subject and I think it will allow multiple viable startup on biotech. Looking forward what is coming next.😀 

[1]https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/deepmind-protein-database-alphafold-ai

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Darko Savic2 years ago

A good video describing the process of finding and validating biotech startup ideas

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