Fortistís: Solving Climate Change with Biocomputing
33,100,000,000.
That’s the number of metric tons of carbon dioxide that were pushed into the atmosphere in 2019.
To put that ginormous number in perspective:
That’s 1 billion.
Now take that and add 33 more. That’s the number we’re dealing with.
What’s more is that right now we are at 450 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere. A safe level would be 350 ppm. We need to get to this number fast, by 2030 at the latest.
But how did this CO2 get in the atmosphere in the first place?
Causes of Carbon Emissions
a. Burning Fossil Fuels (65% of all emissions)
We need fossil fuels for everything from driving to cooking our food. They provide heat, electricity, and power all the factories that manufacture everything from steel to textiles.
b. Transportation (30%)
Everything from your drive to the grocery store to transcontinental shipping, we can’t imagine a world without buses, trains, ships, and planes.
So, What’s the Solution?
We have to get CO2 out of the atmosphere. We can either:
- Reduce emissions so that less CO2 is going into the atmosphere (improve renewable energy)
- Remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere
Here at Fortistís, we saw that there is lot of funding and infrastructure going into reducing emissions in the first place. We didn’t see nearly as much innovation in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. So, we decided to focus on that.
Awesome. Now what?
Fortistís: Our Mission
Well…now we figure out how to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and repurpose it! And that’s exactly what we did. We looked at everything from Direct Air Capture to soil carbon sequestration to turning CO2 into cement. These are really interesting technologies that all have their own unique advantages, but we didn’t think we could have a 10x impact with one of these methods.
It took us a while to realize that the solution we were looking for had been in front of us this entire time. We were turning to technologies that were more and more far removed from natural processes as we looked for technology to reverse a natural phenomenon.
Our name means “sustainability”. We envision a world where plants can grow anywhere. We are also passionate about simple, natural, and innovative ways to reverse the effects of global warming — these values shaped our solution into what it is today.
All a user has to do is plant a starter Fortistís cell on whatever they want to turn into an invisible mini-forest — your roof, the office building’s exterior, your car’s hood. Then, the cell will do what all living things do: grow, until the entire surface area of the man-made substance is covered with a living, breathing plant layer. One by one, we hope to cover as much surface as possible with layer of plants that can help absorb CO2 and keep our planet cool and healthy.
What follows is a detailed description of not only our ideation process, but how our technology works and what breakthroughs we have to make to see Fortistís become a reality. Please visit us at fortistisco.com for more information.
Photosynthesis
Forests are the biggest carbon sinks. This means they absorb enormous amounts of CO2. The Amazon Rainforest stores about 7.6 billion metric tons of CO2 every year.
How do plants do this? Through a process called “photosynthesis”. This breaks down into “photo” which means “light”, and “synthesis” which means the creation of something. Plants use photosynthesis to create energy for themselves in the form of sugar.
The chemical equation for photosynthesis is as follows:
- Note: C6H12O6 is glucose, the energy molecule that powers plants.
So, plants are naturally absorbing CO2 and repurposing it into arguably the most important thing for all life: oxygen.
Currently, 31% of the Earth is forested. That is a lot of potential to absorb CO2, but it is not enough. That got us thinking…what if we could increase that percent? What if we could create more plants, and what if we made them especially good at absorbing lots of CO2 at a time? But that would mean genetically engineering plants, and while this is being done in some capacity, it is straying further and further from what is natural. We still wanted to do something about the 31% number. What if…plants could grow anywhere? The typical plant you think of needs soil, water, a stable place to grow, and has roots and a stem. That is quite a lot of criteria, and not every place in the world can support plants. There is so much cement, concrete, and other man-made substances on our planet now that we’ve run out of places to simply grow more trees. It turns out, not all plants are this demanding when it comes to what kind of conditions they need to grow.
In fact, the oldest photosynthesizing organism is nothing like a typical plant you’d think of.
Algae: the CO2 capturer
You’ve probably seen it on rocks by the lake, maybe in your old fish tank. It’s not particularly appealing, but it’s doing more work than you’d think. In fact, algae absorbs 2 times more CO2 than the average plant and grows 3 times faster.
This is in part because algae is a much simpler organism and grows in large spreads rather than upwards like a plant’s leaves, so it can perform more photosynthesis since it has a greater surface area.
So, this is great news, right? We found a “plant” that is doing a better job photosynthesizing than typical plants! Furthermore, it doesn’t need soil to grow! Fantastic! So…what if algae could grow anywhere? If it could, then we could drastically increase the amount of photosynthesis happening — and that means, drastically increase the amount of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere!
Well, I don’t think people would like algae growing in their city. If our vision is to convert the concrete jungle into something not so concrete, then I don’t think we can have green buildings, roofs, and car hoods.
It turns out, there is a microscopic form of algae (micro-algae). One particularly helpful species of micro-algae is the cyanobacteria. Don’t worry — this bacteria is very, very helpful! If we used cyanobacteria in our solution, we wouldn’t have to have visibly green coatings on our office buildings.
Alright, so now we’re trying to get cyanobacteria to grow anywhere, but we need to figure out how that would be possible. The bacteria needs somewhere to grow, because if it cannot grow and sustain itself, it cannot photosynthesize.
Bacterial Cellulose: the growth medium
It turns out that some types of bacteria produce something called bacterial cellulose, which is a very versatile material. Though they produce it as a layer of extra protection for their cells, cellulose is also used extensively in food production. Structurally, it is very sound — it is flexible, durable, and hydrophilic.
It turns out, bacterial cellulose can also be a growth medium for bacteria.
One paper that we were looking at for ideas had this diagram to show how we could grow micro-algae:
As we can see here, bacterial cellulose can act as a growth medium for it’s own bacteria! And here, they are using 2 different bacteria — C.reinhardtii and A.aceti. We wanted to keep our solution simple, so we wanted to use only cyanobacteria.
The problem is that cyanobacteria does not naturally produce bacterial cellulose. If it did, though, we could create a culture where the cyanobacteria could produce it’s own growth medium and keep growing! Then, if we put this culture on, let’s say a car hood or the roof of your house, it could grow a mat of algae there! It could photosynthesize on a man-made substance!
A few more questions arise now. First, can we change cyanobacteria to allow it to produce bacterial cellulose? And second, if we assume that we can, how would we prevent a stockpile of cellulose being leftover if it isn’t being decomposed in some way? Also, wouldn’t the cyanobacteria just grow everywhere? How could we monitor it? And what if it attracts other bacteria or other wildlife? How can we keep it clean?
How will the darn thing actually work?
Biocomputing:
The short answer? Fortistís will function like a living robot, using principles of biocomputing.
The long answer? Read on.
First, let’s get definitions. A biocomputer, while able to perform many standard tasks a typical computer can, relies on a biological sub-base; in other words, a biocomputer is the “living computer!” A biocomputer functions through chemical and electrical signals that are translated from the biological to computer part.
The idea of biocomputing initially arose from Eric Winfree and other colleagues in 1998, where the group utilized two-dimensional “lattices” of DNA using a “double crossover” motif (a typical three-dimensional structure that appears in unrelated groups of molecules). Essentially, Winfree hinted at the idea of using biology for computational purposes, as he believed the scope of computational science would expand immensely. Most importantly, he was right.
Now, what are these biocomputers made of? There are two critical parts when constructing a biocomputer: the biological base (which is usually DNA, RNA, a protein, or a cell) and a “general-purpose” computer. Let’s observe each component in more detail.
The “Biology” Part
DNA serves as a blueprint for our body; by being able to store hereditary information, DNA controls many aspects of an organism’s internal and external conditions. This alone is what makes DNA so ideal as a base for biocomputers; the usage of DNA nucleotides to store memory has been widely exploited with great success. For example, George Church of Harvard University, along with some colleagues, was able to record videos of a human hand and “store” it in the DNA of Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. Coli.
RNA has a multitude of functions, with some notable ones being protein construction and gene regulation (particularly during development). This wide range of functionality also makes RNA a suitable target for building a biocomputer. While there hasn’t been significant research done regarding RNA’s versatility in a biocomputer, some studies have shown that RNA can be used in basic networks containing an input, logic gate, and output.
Unlike previous experiments with DNA and RNA, protein-based biocomputers have only been conducted in vitro, so their full functionality hasn’t been truly explored. Since different proteins perform different functions in the body, biocomputers could have different logic gates assigned depending on where the protein is needed in an organism.
The “Computer” Part
The most general form of a biocomputer is the silicon computer system, which contains an I/O (input and output), a control unit, memory space, and an arithmetic logic unit.
All the components, with the exception of the memory space, work collectively to form the computer-processing unit (CPU), although each aspect has a specialized function. For example, the control unit oversees the function of the other units and controls the activation of certain parts of the biocomputer. With the control unit, the biocomputer can shift between different “modes” and, overall, different functions.
An Intro to CRISPR/Cas9
With Fortistís, our biocomputer relies on a cyanobacteria plasmid to operate. In addition, to prevent the overgrowth of the bacterial cellulose, we use CRISPR to encode a cellulose decomposition enzyme in the cyanobacteria that can be activated from the biocomputer. Now, how will CRISPR do this?
In short, CRISPR is a gene editing tool that permits modifications to an organism’s DNA. The term “CRISPR” stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” which are small virus copies found in bacterial DNA. On the other hand, Cas9 is an enzyme that can slice DNA and is responsible for warding off viruses within the bacteria.
To introduce CRISPR into an organism, scientists will use an RNA strand programmed to arrive at a specific spot on the nucleus. Essentially, the RNA strand will guide the Cas9 enzyme to the specific section in the organism’s genome, where Cas9 proceeds to unzip the DNA there.
Cas9 will begin snipping the DNA at the targeted location that RNA binds to. By cutting this section of the DNA, Cas9 has generated a “break” in both strands of the DNA molecule. Once the necessary changes have been made, the cell itself will immediately work to fix the issue.
Breakthroughs that must happen
Currently, the only living robot to have been made is the Xenobot.
We will use biocomputing to facilitate the following:
- Recognizing whether Fortistís can keep growing in a certain area by assessing how much sun it will receive there
- Tracking how much CO2 is being absorbed by the forest
- Tracking how much O2 is being released by the forest
- Making sure the forest doesn’t get eaten by other organisms
Clearly, this will require a very intelligent system. That’s why Fortistís will be a living robot, but that also means that lots of breakthroughs need to happen in the field of biocomputing. We will need to engineer cells that can interact with their environment, calculate amounts of gas being passed through the system, know when to activate the cellulose decomposition enzyme, and so much more. We will also need to run large scale computations to determine which molecular composition will yield the best results.
No research has been done in any of these areas.
We estimate as much as 5 years for scientists to develop technology that will allow us to use biological components with such a great level of sophistication and safety.
The Power of Fortistís
Yes, we need lots of advancement to happen, but let’s say it all does. How much CO2 can we really absorb with this?
Let’s imagine that you, the user, decide to cover your roof with Fortistís. You live in an average sized home in the US, so the surface area of your roof is approximately 1,700 square feet.
Recall that micro-algae can absorb 2 grams of CO2/1 gram of biomass.
1 gram of micro-algae is around as wide as a penny.
We do some math to find that your roof could fit more than 550,000 pennies. That means 550,000+ grams of algae. Now, multiply that by 2 and convert to pounds… we get 2,444 pounds of CO2 sequestered in one year by just one rooftop!
This roof is sequestering more than 50 times the amount of CO2 the average tree can in a year!
Now multiply this by how many homes there are in the US and you have a whopping 151,000 metric tons of CO2 absorbed by only rooftops in the US alone!
Think about buildings, cars, and more… the numbers get really big, really fast.
Funding
To make Fortistís a reality, we need the technological and scientific innovation, but we also need some monetary support.
We approximate our funding needs for R&D to be around 1 million dollars. Since this is a green project, we can also apply for grants from the government like the Small Business Innovation Research Program. Cyanobacteria is readily found in aquatic environments and is very easy and cheap to harvest. Before we scale up, our starter kits will cost anywhere from 1k-2.5k. The market for green tech is projected to be valued at over $57 billion in less than 10 years, according to Newswire, so the industry will be booming.
Closing Thoughts
We are very excited for the future of Fortistís. We think it has serious potential to make our planet greener, cleaner, and safer for future generations, one invisible forest at a time. Thank you for your time!
