Description

The looming threat of the climate crisis is quickly becoming an overwhelming reality and every step must be taken to lessen its consequences. Many labs work tirelessly on carbon capture technologies and solutions to plastic pollution, but we wanted to take a different, unique approach. Ultimately, we decided on a ubiquitous source of energy consumption whose effects are often overlooked; lighting.

A SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION TOWARDS REDUCING THE IMPACT OF LIGHTING ON GLOBAL CARBON EMISSIONS

Electric light has vastly increased our quality of life and transformed modern society. We use electrical lights to illuminate our streets, schools and hospitals, extending functionality, productivity and safety. Lighting is also a prominent feature in our celebrations, performances, and artistic expression as lights decorate our city squares, artworks and our greatest feats of architecture.

The heavy reliance of electrical lighting in society also impacts our energy usage, and in turn, our output of greenhouse gases. A typical municipality’s electrical bill breaks down from 20-40% of its public lighting.(1) In addition, electrical light contributes to 20% of energy consumption and 6% of global CO2 emissions, which are projected to increase 60% by 2030.(2) This, in part, also is due to the overabundance of electrical lighting, the needless usage of bright, intense light in addition to poor design and implementation. Yet, lighting is indispensable to our way of living, its widespread usage is both necessary and perpetuates the issue.

WILDLIFE IMPACT


Our current outdoor lighting systems have a significant impact on wildlife of all kinds.(3) These lights can disorient animals, disrupting their migrations and daily movements. Artificial light is particularly detrimental to animals who use the moon to orient themselves such as moths and sea turtle hatchlings.(3) As we replace more bulbs with the white light and shorter wavelengths of LEDs we effectively increase the strain on wildlife populations and further exacerbate the crisis.(3)

CURRENT SOLUTIONS


LEDs are currently our most efficient and long lasting light source. But with these bulbs we pay a steep price in embodied carbon, heavy metals, and toxic metalloids, including: arsenic, lead, indium, bauxite, manganese, and selenium.(5) Mining for these materials contributes to the destruction of countless acres of wildlife habitat every year and leaches toxic metals into the surrounding land and water, often with lethal consequences.(6)

BIOLUMINESCENCE


When tracing lighting back in a historical sense, we think of the progression from moonlight to firelight, candlelight to gas lamps, the light bulb and beyond. But this picture is incomplete. Indigenous peoples of Indonesia used bioluminescent fungi as torches to navigate through the darkness, hunt, and avoid enemies.(4) Humans used this biological cold light for centuries but its usage has all but disappeared in modern times. Bioluminescence is a renewable and sustainable source of light, yet currently we favour far more destructive sources.

LIFE BULB


One of the fundamental goals of Life Bulb is to provide a more sustainable alternative for our society to enjoy our lives through lighting. We carefully designed a photosynthetic source of lighting through biological means. Using the cyanobacteria, Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, our project provides a technology that is easily scalable and potentially carbon-neutral or negative using the recently elucidated bioluminescent fungal pathway of Neonothopanus nambi. This system has yet to be fully expressed in prokaryotes, and therefore, our team set on a journey to provide the initial step of expressing this pathway in Escherichia coli. Once successfully expressed, this will provide the groundings for this bioluminescent system to be expressed in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and other prokaryotes. To put into perspective, 20-30% of Earth's photosynthetic productivity is carried out by cyanobacteria and we aim to utilize these capabilities for producing light.(8)

WHY CYANOBACTERIA?


Biomimicry is the strategy of looking to the natural world for innovation and solutions to modern problems. There are numerous bioluminescent organisms but none were suitable for the multipurpose, low-maintenance, easily scalable lighting system we envisioned. Attempts have been made in the past to produce bioluminescent plants and yeast, but these systems lacked versatility, or had high maintenance and space requirements.(9)(10) So, we chose something entirely different and decided to introduce a newly discovered auto bioluminescent system from fungi in a prokaryote.

We chose cyanobacteria as our chassis since they are relatively easy to grow and maintain and many strains have already been engineered with useful adaptions such as heat or cold tolerance. Being photosynthetic, our engineered cyanobacteria will produce the first carbon negative light, sustaining themselves on CO2 and sunlight while producing O2 and emitting light. Our sustainable lighting solution will have no heavy or toxic metal requirements, associated habitat destruction or electricity requirements. With Life Bulb, we will be able to integrate into established infrastructure as well as remote areas, with aspirations that biological light sources may one day replace our dependency on electrical sources and provide new opportunities for illumination and artistic expression.


CARBON NEGATIVE SYSTEMS

Uses atmospheric carbon during photosynthesis and releases oxygen.


EASILY SCALABLE

Cyanobacteria have an 8 hr doubling time, significantly faster than microalgae.


A NOVEL METHOD OF EXPRESSING ART

We demonstrate a novel way of using synthetic biology that is both beautiful and practical.

EDUCATIONAL TOOL FOR THE YOUTH & INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY AS A MEDIUM FOR EXREPSSING ART AND CULTURE

We as a society are experiencing heightened skepticism and fear with the increasing politicization of biotechnologies. The impact of social media rabbit holes and echo chambers and the virality of news stories that evoke strong emotional responses fosters an environment that promotes misinformation and uncertainty.(11)

One of the most significant and relevant examples of this is the growing anti-vaccine sentiments worldwide. For example, a study conducted regarding hesitancy towards vaccines in Canada found that 32.4% of tweets with anti-vaccine attitudes were composed of political skepticism and conspiracies of the motivations behind the vaccine.(12) The lack of trust in scientists and development could also be partly attributed to the unique history of abuse and colonialism of Canada as well. Indigenous communities have expressed concerns of hesitancy specifically towards science involving the medical industry due to several instances where they were unethically subjected to experiments by the Canadian Government.(13) In an increasingly skeptic society, Life Bulb aims to demonstrate the vast potential of biotechnology and instill a fascination towards science among the general public and these wronged communities.

Life Bulb is an educational tool that has the potential to be implemented in architectural, home, and artistic settings. With the widespread implementation of synthetic biology, people will become more accustomed and open towards these types of technologies. Youth especially enjoy decorative lights, with the trendy LED lighting being prevalent in children's bedrooms around the world. We envision Life Bulb to also cater towards this niche, and to inspire the youth with this technology. Furthermore, we have collaborated with an Indigenous artist from the Okanagan, Les Louis, to create a proof-of-concept design of how this technology would be implemented in artistic settings. Through this, we hope to connect with Indigenous communities and provide a medium for these underrepresented communities to express themselves through biotechnologies. With the exposure of synthetic biology to a variety of age groups and communities, Life Bulb aims to destigmatize synthetic biology and biotechnologies as a whole.

REFERENCES


  1. (2022) Led. Climate Group. The Climate Group.
  2. The United Nations Environment Programme/ Global Environment Facility. The rapid transition to energy efficient lighting: an integrated policy approach;2013
  3. Palminteri, Sue. Let There Be Light - but Be Mindful of the Wildlife. Mongabay Environmental News, 26 June 2018, https://news.mongabay.com/2018/06/let-there-be-light-but-be-mindful-of-the-wildlife/.
  4. Jabr, Ferris. The Secret History of Bioluminescence. Hakai Magazine, 10 May 2016, https://hakaimagazine.com/features/secret-history-bioluminescence/.
  5. Harris, Brian. Mineral Products and Metals That Make LED Light Bulbs. U.S. Geological Survey 2010, Minerals Education Coalition, https://mineralseducationcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/mec_fact_sheet_led_bulbs_0.pdf.
  6. Mining, Center for Biological Diversity, https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/mining/index.html.
  7. Longcore, Rodríguez, Witherington, Penniman, Herf, and Herf. Rapid Assessment of Lamp Spectrum to Quantify Ecological Effects of Light at Night, 2018, https://fluxometer.com/ecological/.
  8. (2011, November 2) Cyanobacteria absorbs CO2 and could be a used to ward off global warming. Saving Data, Saving Lives. The International Environmental Data Rescue Organization.
  9. Mitiouchkina, T.; Mishin, A. S.; Somermeyer, L. G.; Markina, N. M.; Chepurnyh, T. V.; Guglya, E. B.; Karataeva, T. A.; Palkina, K. A.; Shakhova, E. S.; Fakhranurova, L. I.; Chekova, S. V.; Tsarkova, A. S.; Golubev, Y. V.; Negrebetsky, V. V.; Dolgushin, S. A.; Shalaev, P. V.; Shlykov, D.; Melnik, O. A.; Shipunova, V. O.; Deyev, S. M.; Bubyrev, A. I.; Pushin, A. S.; Choob, V. V.; Dolgov, S. V.; Kondrashov, F. A.; Yampolsky, I. V.; Sarkisyan, K. S. Plants with Genetically Encoded Autoluminescence. Nature Biotechnology 2020, 38 (8), 944–946.
  10. Kotlobay, A. A.; Sarkisyan, K. S.; Mokrushina, Y. A.; Marcet-Houben, M.; Serebrovskaya, E. O.; Markina, N. M.; Gonzalez Somermeyer, L.; Gorokhovatsky, A. Y.; Vvedensky, A.; Purtov, K. V.; Petushkov, V. N.; Rodionova, N. S.; Chepurnyh, T. V.; Fakhranurova, L. I.; Guglya, E. B.; Ziganshin, R.; Tsarkova, A. S.; Kaskova, Z. M.; Shender, V.; Abakumov, M.; Abakumova, T. O.; Povolotskaya, I. S.; Eroshkin, F. M.; Zaraisky, A. G.; Mishin, A. S.; Dolgov, S. V.; Mitiouchkina, T. Y.; Kopantzev, E. P.; Waldenmaier, H. E.; Oliveira, A. G.; Oba, Y.; Barsova, E.; Bogdanova, E. A.; Gabaldón, T.; Stevani, C. V.; Lukyanov, S.; Smirnov, I. V.; Gitelson, J. I.; Kondrashov, F. A.; Yampolsky, I. V. Genetically Encodable Bioluminescent System from Fungi. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2018, 115 (50), 12728–12732.
  11. Owen, T., Loewen, P., Ruths, D., Bridgman, A., Saleem, H. M., Merkley, E., and Zhilin, O. (2020, December) Understanding vaccine hesitancy in Canada: attitudes, beliefs, and the information ecosystem. The Media Ecosystem Observatory.
  12. Griffith, J., Marani, H., and Monkman, H. (2021) Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in Canada: Content analysis of tweets using the theoretical domains framework. Journal of Medical Internet Research 23.
  13. Mosby, I., and Swidrovich, J. (2021) Medical experimentation and the roots of covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among indigenous peoples in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal 193.