Future renewable resource needs: will genomics help?

With world demand for consumer goods, materials, and energy continuing to spiral upwards, man has become increasingly reliant on finite reserves of fossil fuels. Moreover, as consumption accelerates there is a danger that the net carbon emissions to the atmosphere may result in detrimental effects in future years. Currently, bio-based inputs account for about 2% of all basic building blocks in manufacturing, excluding wood furniture. A goal of a five-fold increase (to 10%) in the use of bio-based renewable resources, by 2020, has been created for the US. One of the proposed priority research components, to help achieve such an increase, is the further application of genomics to the development of novel renewable resources. The concept is that structural and functional genomics should provide gene discovery methods plus an improved ability to understand the genetic base for the regulation of particular natural molecular structures. Additional biotechnology tools may then be used for metabolic engineering of existing pathways, or to transfer discovered genes into large-scale production systems or to transform high-yielding crops.