Mira sits at her kitchen table with her mug in hand, lost in thought about the latest biotech news, which plays from a worn-out radio. Currently, sunlight is creeping into the kitchen. She scratches the surface of her coffee mug as if it were a magical artifact, revealing forgotten patterns within. Something feels different lately. Maybe it’s the way neighbors mention algae or gene tweaks in passing; they’re no longer some far-off science headline, only a fragment of fancy. Vexo’s logo dances on an old tablet beside her, and for a moment, she wonders if there are people outside labs who care about such things. There’s an elusive feeling, probably at odds with most people’s phrasing, that biology and tech are merging, slowly, into daily routines.
Some people say Vexo is like one of those toolkits for nature, though Mira sometimes refers to it as something akin to a software patch for living organisms. Imagine DNA as lines of code—not pixel-perfect, more like an old script you keep tweaking ’til it works. Instead of fixing bugs in apps, picture editing the genes of a tomato or a tiny microbe so they perform new tricks. There is talk about programming yeast to spit out rare sugars, or plants that glow faintly at night (a few early university lab reports suggested this was becoming possible about seven years ago). At conferences, that analogy gets thrown around—synthetic biology is not just tinkering, it’s almost like debugging life, but with way less undo buttons than anyone anticipated.
For most people, the process begins when someone identifies an issue. Perhaps an HPV wastewater treatment facility is overflowing with plastic waste. It could also be water that looks suspicious. Then there is the plastic waste problem with Vexo and other organizations. These companies begin designing specialized bacteria or enzymes using CRISPR or popular Ai X modeling tools. After several months of benchwork, if progress is made towards meeting industry standards, and things are functioning for the most part, industry folks will jump in. Scaling up will always take more time than expected. With the FDA being the first to report issues over lack of utilizing AI and inadequate supervision during research in the past few years, it is clear that regulations are the last part of the process. Even after Carbios managed to patent their projects, major headlines regarding the development of new enzymes would always preceed the actual device for public use.
When discussing the history of biotech, some people seem to look back at the days when PCR and some early gene modifications were already considered advanced. Now, AI models everywhere make it look like the pace of innovation has changed. Not everyone agrees on how fast things really move or what needs to change first (MIT Bioengineering, 2025). It no longer seems to be enough if the primary focus was getting a tool into the labs. Regulation and automation, for example, come up in conversations more than they used to. Perhaps in this case, what worked for only a handful of projects twenty some years ago no longer fits when there are dozens of new directions all tangled together.
Is there really an “edit” way to alleviate environmental issues? Some colleagues point to CRISPR as a potential solution, but to my knowledge, that approach has been overhyped. It feels like there’s only so far we can go beyond a few plots with the plants or microbes engineered to endure high carbon stress and droughts. In conversations shared from the last UN CBD meetings, it did not seem like there was a consensus around regulatory issues and ecological considerations. Everything just feels suspended at this point.
As for Mira, she’s used to the question, “If I go to the store and buy milk, is it the product of some microbe fermentation?” People do jokingly assume breakfast has jumped into the realm of science fiction. Responding to this joke, she explains that brave Robot and other similar brands have started appearing next to traditional cartons in some grocery stores. Not everybody pays attention to the ingredient lists, in fact, they are difficult to find unless you are scrutinizing the package. Early reports suggest publicized proteins hit shelves long before the general population realized. As for the buzz surrounding lab-grown coffee… it’s not here yet, but the gossip comes and goes.
The details are somewhat blurry, but I remember attending a local event, maybe a farmers market, and they were giving out those small patties that resembled beef sliders. The sizzle caught my attention, although the smell was off—not too smoky, more like a lighter scent. I tried poking the patty first. Juicy, far more than I expected, but the way the fat seemed to melt felt a bit different; perhaps it was just my imagination. The chew brought back memories of summer grills from years ago, but the texture was far more reminiscent of trying a new dish for the first time—not bad, just different from what I grew up with. Someone next to me mentioned a bite tasting almost like supermarket burgers, and while I understand those types of flavors can be mildly nostalgic, I couldn’t agree too much.
In the middle of last year, I believe it was Smith and a few others from Nature Sustainability, started to share some data with us. It suggested that with the use of algae technology in factories, emissions could be reduced by nearly half.. Not all pilot plants achieve those numbers, but when it comes to decarbonization algal systems have emerged as a favorite approach. It’s quite common to hear algal systems mentioned everywhere from the U.S. to even Asia, with the details changing depending on who you speak to. The consensus appears to be that certain target sectors achieve reductions of 35% and above, but how far the results will be outside the early trials is still being questioned.
What would a city block look like if they were mossy forests? This might happen if algae were to start growing on the walls of buildings. Programmable organisms that can fix things after a storm or repair broken bridges in one night, sounds radical but in a matter of decades what was is now could just be another utility report.
For now, putting your focus on grocery stores around the area might bring some results. For instance, regular milk and cheese sometimes share shelf space with precision-fermented proteins. Also, try looking for municipal reports about the algae-based systems designed to cut down emissions in wastewater plants. These reports need a bit of digging and asking around. There’s also the mycelium packaging which is often replaced with styrofoam chunks. Visit shops like IKEA and see for yourself. Finally, try finding local councils that are looking to use bioremediation systems, algal turf scrubbers to be more specific, and compare different brands plant-based foods, because in a matter of seconds, what was mainstream changes.
According to Imagingcoe’s recent report, when discussing things like crops that have been gene-edited or synthetic coffee, one is likely to look at the approving databases or consumer advocacy sites that outline which products have been granted approval in a specific region. However, these tend to change region to region as well as year to year. Often, these changes go unnoticed where utility updates or even speaking to retail employees can yield more information than official announcements.
