The biotechnology revolution – delivering a greener and cleaner future

Rob Field, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, explores whether COVID-19 could be the catalyst for biotechnology to provide solutions to some of our biggest global challenges.

Biotechnology promises a revolution in the way we make our future medicines, materials and fuels. The big challenge is moving industries from oil-based resources to a greener biotech alternative. How can this be achieved? 

Well, the Second World War provided the motivation to get the antibiotic penicillin from being a lab-based curiosity into mainstream use, as it was needed to treat injured combatants and civilians.

The COVID-19 emergency could act as a very similar catalyst to fast-track innovation and scale up the ‘biotechnology revolution’ so it meets the challenges of the health crisis – and then the potentially even bigger existential risk of climate change.

Recorded in September 2020

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