2022 has been another record-breaking year on the planet. The world is in "scorching mode", even the Arctic is 30 degrees. Extreme weather events such as heat, drought and catastrophic precipitation have been occurring in many parts of the world, and in March, temperatures in northern India soared to nearly 50 degrees Celsius, causing significant adverse effects on human health, agriculture, ecosystems and more. Today, extreme weather is no longer a "once in a century" event.

According to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, our window to avoid climate catastrophe is closing rapidly. The continuous rise of temperature is leading to results such as the death of coral reefs, rising sea level, droughts, and more medium- to large-scale disasters. Every time extreme weather and climate events such as heavy rainfall, high temperatures and hurricanes occur, they may be a warning signal from nature to mankind. We have to respond to the warnings and identify the root causes of the climate crisis so that we may still have a chance to save our planet.

According to Thomas R. Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the record high temperatures on a global scale "have come about because of massive warming caused by human activity." Emissions of greenhouse gases such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have been rising since pre-industrial times and are currently at levels not seen in at least the last 800,000 years, especially carbon dioxide emissions.

Since humanity identify the root causes of the climate crisis, which is the continuous rising emission of greenhouse gases, solutions and plans have been made together by countries for the greater good of the world. The Paris Agreement set a long-term goal to limit the increase in global average temperature to less than 2°C compared to the pre-industrial period and to work towards limiting the temperature increase to less than 1.5°C. The goal of keeping temperatures to 2°C would require zero global carbon emissions, also known as Carbon Neutral, between 2055-2070.

To reach Carbon Neutral, biotechnology especially synthetic biology can make a huge difference. The World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that by 2030, industrial biotechnology will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 to 2.5 billion per year.

Among all the possible achievements we can make using synthetic biology, we focus on enriching and extending our renewable energy resources using methods that have zero carbon emissions and can even absorb greenhouse gases.

Currently, more than 80% of the world's total primary energy consumption is taken up by coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear, the other 20% or less is renewable energy. Mining and burning down fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases and pollutants. Renewable energy is energy produced from sources like the sun and wind that are naturally replenished and do not run out. Not to mention, the process of obtaining and using renewable energy cause much less or nearly zero pollution.

Biomass is one type of renewable resource that can be converted into liquid fuels—known as biofuels—for transportation. Biofuels include cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, and renewable hydrocarbon "drop-in" fuels. Renewable transportation fuels that are functionally equivalent to petroleum fuels lower the carbon intensity of our vehicles and airplanes.

Microalgae are unicellular photosynthetic micro-organisms, living in saline or freshwater environments, that convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to algal biomass. Most algae are photosynthetic organisms and can fix CO₂ into sugars that enter central metabolism for use as macromolecular building blocks making them, in principle, sustainable feedstock for a wide variety of biologicals. Algal lipids are considered a viable, sustainable source of biofuels and other hydrocarbons with commercial applications.

Here, in Chlipid, we use transcriptome analysis and CRISPR/Cas9 system to discover and manipulate lipid metabolism-related genes in our chassis, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to enrich lipid productivity and maintain culture efficiency to discover a new approach to producing biofuels that can absorb greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

In wet lab work, we confirmed the effective culture system and stress conditions. Meanwhile, we completed the microalgae culture under stress conditions and transcriptome analysis of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We also discovered a series of genes with a large degree of difference. In addition, we successfully constructed a CRISPR/Cas9 knockout system and a relatively mature transformation system for microalgae. We develop a pervasive system that enables us to build mutant banks as huge as we like, therefore, studying the function of each gene and their combinations become achievable.

Along the way, we construct a CRISPR off-target model to stimulate and project the future of Chlipid. We also want to make Chlipid acceptable and well-known to people seen to be outside the world of synthetic biology and we have done so much by now. Chlipid is a treasure that still being perfecting and its potentials are still there to be discovered by fellow keen on any relative topics.