The chemicals industry has a large carbon footprint and many of its processes result in toxic byproducts. Thus the time is ripe to find greener and cleaner chemical manufacturing processes. In the past two decades, synthetic biology technologies have been used to manufacture both commodity and specialty chemicals. These processes are now scaling up, attaining price parity with their chemical counterparts, and regulations around the world are keeping pace.

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Food systems are undergoing a significant transformation driven by unsustainable use of land and water resources and rising costs. This transformation is being led by biotechnology-based food products which enable food production in large scale bioreactors, thereby reducing land and water usage, while also enhancing productivities and driving down costs. The next decade is expected to open up opportunities for commercialization of these products, which will require support in the form of financial investments, infrastructure as well as regulatory acceptance.

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Synthetic biology uses techniques in genomics, systems biology and bioengineering to improve various aspects of agriculture, ranging from making food more nutritious to making more stress-resistant crop varieties. Agri-inputs, in particular, form a big part of this piece and startups in the field received more than $900M in VC funding in 2021. Going forward, more and more agri-inputs in use today will be replaced by more sustainable ones made using synthetic biology.

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Synthetic biology is the engineering of natural biological systems so as to obtain desirable behaviour and end products. SynBio techniques can be used across domains, ranging from agriculture and food to cosmetics to industrial chemicals. Investments in these companies have picked up globally, while the field remains nascent in India. The next decade and more will see a huge rise in the application of synthetic biology to create more sustainable versions of many current products.

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