Realizing Reef Resilience through Genetic Coding

As coral reefs face catastrophic existential threats with the potential to eviscerate their populations entirely owing to widespread coral bleaching due to global warming, climate change, ocean pollution, and overfishing, science offers a glimpse of hope. Here, synthetic biology, which is a burgeoning area of research, becomes a pivotal focus domain that promises to act as a corrective to the degradation suffered by reefs at the hands of environmental and biological factors.

What then is synthetic biology? Synthetic biology involves redesigning the genetic structure of organisms for useful purposes by endowing them with new abilities. In synthetic biology, scientists suture together long strands of DNA sequences and insert them within an organism’s genome.

In the case of coral reefs, scientists wield synthetic biology to alter the genomic structures of coral reefs to make them resilient to factors like rising water temperatures, making the reefs heat-resistant. This is done by identifying gene variants in existing corals that are responsible for coral’s ability to withstand heat, and then by replicating these gene variants and introducing them in other reefs to make them heat resistant as well. This is particularly helpful because while there is a limit to the ways in which and the degree to which we can control extraneous factors, altering the genomic structure itself can precisely be controlled to achieve the desired effect.

However, while assisted breeding of heat-tolerant variants of corals has been successfully demonstrated, the use of synthetic biology to create heat-resistant versions of reefs is yet to be empirically tested. Further, there is the additional challenge of the public perception of this technology. Given that a significant number of people are hesitant to use genetically modified (GM) food products such that the European Union had to legislate a mandatory marking of GM foods as such means that navigating public perception would be key in determining whether this technology is accepted.

As synthetic biology opens up new possibilities for what conservation should be like, it can be tempting to abdicate all responsibility to join the fight against environmental degradation and climate change. This is because synthetic biology entails changes in the structures of organisms instead of requiring us to make changes in our lifestyles and consumption patterns to ease the stress put on resources. Therefore, it’s likely to lead to feelings of complacency. This is precisely why we need to view synthetic biology as a temporary fix instead of as a permanent solution.

Sources:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8782467/
2. https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Synthetic-Biology