“Designer Enzyme Conquers Sulfite Reduction, a Bottleneck in Environmental Cleanup.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 13 Sept. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180913142023.htm.
A few months ago at the University of Illinois, researches made big steps in the field of environmental cleanup. Professor Yi Lu and student Evan Mirts designed a synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide. Sulfite reduction can interfere with the cleanup of major environmental contaminants. Sulfite also interferes with the elimination of more toxic compounds. Scientists had not been able to create catalysts before to remove sulfite as it was extremely complex and is very difficult to achieve. Lu and Mirts have been the only people successful with this and hope that their actions spark other people to get involved with environmental cleanup issues.
My opinion on this is that it is very good. Any advancements that work and will have a good effect on environment are obviously very useful and important. I agree with what the creators said about what they hope this will lead too. If this means that more people get involved with helping to develop different things or contribute in different ways to the environmental cleanup cause, then that would be extremely beneficial.
Agreed- any steps in improving our ability to “bioremediate” and clean up toxins is good, as long as it doesn’t create other problems in the process. Great example of bio engineering… “synthetic enzymes”. Welcome to the 21st century. Do you think these should be regulated though… are there potential consequences of going to fast with these types of breakthroughs?