Bioresources and Bioproducts: A New Open Access Journal

Greetings to the bioresource and bioproducts community! I will serve as the Editor-in-Chief to collaborate with you as we promote the aims and scope of this new MDPI journal [1], with the help of its distinguished Editorial Board, by publishing Special Issues, Topics, Topical Collections, and Editorials, and by providing high-impact scholarship through the outstanding published work of each of our contributors.

I look forward to implementing our shared vision of contributing high-impact global research, development, and applications as we work together to advocate for improvements to public health, the environment, and bioindustry worldwide. The interactions and harmonization of these thrust areas are critical to understanding, assessing, and positively impacting current and future challenges.

Public health is very much a global theme as we reach across continents and oceans to address climate change-induced stresses and differences in geographic and economic constraints that impact water, air, land, energy, and food bioresources. These challenges require new approaches to stewardship and sustainability. From individuals to epidemiological evaluations of populations, public health is impacted by both environmental quality and the bioeconomy.

The environment is a resource that we work not only to protect, but also to enhance, in order to benefit the global biosphere through the creation of high-quality bioproducts that contribute to a sustainable bioeconomy. Appreciating and improving our understanding of the integrated relationship between global public health and the quality of the environment will result in bioproducts that can improve global environmental conditions. This relationship is influenced by substances, manmade and otherwise, that we can add to air, water, and land resources.

Working together as a professional community to improve global public health and the environment, it is critical to plan, develop, and implement new pathways for novel and sustainable bioproducts. For example, take the biotransformation of the greenhouse gas methane into the sunscreen Ectoine by utilizing methanotrophs, the capture of carbon dioxide through increased utilization of photosynthesis to create biomass in engineered systems with reduced energy requirements, or the production of compostable bioplastic materials from microalgae. The global bioindustry can provide these pathways by developing and applying new tools and methods for integrating life sciences with applications that utilize engineering and technology systems.

Recent advancements in discoveries, technologies, and management strategies for synthesizing high-value bioproducts at a commercial scale for improving public health, the environment, and bioindustry worldwide have provided new pathways to enhance all three areas through symbiotic and synergistic relationships. We now have the tools and the opportunity to manage these areas in a feedback loop model.

Furthermore, new technologies—including advancements in synthetic biology such as CRISPR gene editing, which can be used to create improved medicines and health-supporting products, and artificial intelligence (AI), which can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and evaluation of design alternatives—can improve the links between bioresources and bioproducts, as well as the speed of innovation for integrating public health, environment, and bioindustry. Analyses of the impacts on energy and environmental resources, especially local resources, are critical as we learn how to ethically and geographically manage new AI tools in order to improve these bioproducts, and subsequently public health and the environment. It is also necessary to consider the impacts these tools may have on the systems of the planet in terms of new or modified life forms. There is a simultaneous demand for transparency and ethical behavior in order to utilize and evaluate these innovative tools with regard to how they influence bioresource-to-bioproduct pathways.

A particular topic that is exemplary of our demand for transparency, sustainability, and ethical behavior in supporting public health, the environment, and bioindustry is biomanufacturing, and the economic activity related to establishing the infrastructure for the constructive utilization of biological systems. Biomanufacturing provides for the upcycling of bioresources into high-value bioproducts at a commercial scale; approaches include the utilization of single-use bags and associated biotechnology tools, such as CRISPR (at the laboratory scale) and protein engineering. It also offers new and sustainable pathways for utilizing bioresources. For example, bioresources such as plants and macro- and micro-algae may be harvested and processed in order to provide bioproducts at a commercial scale, simultaneously having a positive impact on the environment in terms of reduced water and land requirements and in turn decreasing their associated air emissions.

The cellular agriculture industry is relatively new and should be evaluated for benefits related to its use of animal and plant cells as bioresources in more controlled and efficient biomanufacturing processes, with an associated decrease in the use of land and water dedicated to animal cultivation. However, the use of fetal bovine serum for growth factors raises ethical concerns, and is therefore being phased out within cellular agriculture. This is a further aspect of cellular agriculture which makes it a viable alternative to cultivating plants and livestock through traditional farming; it may also reduce the need for traditional farming in areas with insufficient land and water resources; finally, it also has great potential for missions to Mars and establishing sustainable human colonies there.

There is also a need for the social and life sciences to collaborate when planning and implementing bioresource-to-bioproduct pathways in cases where cultural context affects perspectives or concerns. Understanding cultural preferences, traditions, and concerns may have a significant impact on whether a particular pathway is successful in augmenting the circular economy in a particular geographical region, even though its improvements to public health and environment may be promising.

In conclusion, I encourage the bioresource and bioproducts community to work together and demonstrate their accomplishments to provide a new vision of the world. This should feature a more inclusive and comprehensive integration of societal, technical, engineering, and scientific elements in order to support a sustainable and ethical future with a bioeconomy that enhances both public health and the environment.

To further introduce myself and my background training and experience, I currently serve as a Huntsman Corporation-Endowed Professor of Biological Engineering at Utah State University and was the founding head of the department in 2010. I am an enthusiastic advocate of global industry–academic–government collaborations. With a B.S. in Biology (University of Dayton, Ohio), M.S. degrees in Global Public Health (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Environmental Engineering (Washington State University), and a Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering (North Carolina State University), I embrace a multi- and interdisciplinary view of the world. I have been able to apply this education and gain experience by working for Mobay Chemical Company (SC), a subsidiary of Bayer AG, as a Supervisor of the Environmental Control Laboratory; for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the U.S. State Department Agency for International Development (AID) as Director of the International Program in Environmental Aspects of Industrial Development; for the Research Triangle Institute (RTI, NC) as a process engineer evaluating coal gasification in the Southeast U.S.; for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) at the Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center (Ada, OK); and as Director of the State of Utah Water Research Laboratory. I have always been interested in the interactions of living organisms as part of the ecological and socio-economic webs that play dynamic functions in our lives, and are demonstrated through how we behave and how we create systems of public health, environment, and bioindustry across the globe. I am honored to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of Bioresources and Bioproducts and to work with you in service of preserving and enhancing our resources for the betterment and sustainability of the planet.