A recent paper by the EBNet team on What is Environmental Biotechnology? notes that the discipline is widely seen as less glamorous than synthetic biology or industrial biotech, making it harder to attract staff and funding. Finding evidence for this is quite difficult, and what there is tends to be qualitative – the paper even includes some jokes as examples. But it also offers a series of sources that explicitly refer to the concept of glamour – and it’s interesting to look at their dates.
The first tackles the subject of finding employment for soldiers returning from WW2. The second dates from the early 1960s, and makes a strong and still-relevant case for more research in water and wastewater treatment. The third, from 1994, is in the context of emerging modern biotechnology. The last, written during the Covid-19 pandemic, describes the power and potential of wastewater surveillance: but still takes a lack of glamour for granted.
No doubt other examples can be found, using different search terms: but as a sequence this is pretty convincing. And each of the sources is interesting in its own right, so it’s great that the paper managed to identify and draw attention to them. Key quotes include:
“It is true that there is little glamour attached to collecting and disposal of the wastes of man but it is perhaps the reason why American cities are not like the pest holes of India and the teeming hovels of China”.
Blueprint Now! Who Starts It? Filby, E.L., 1944. Sewage Works Journal, pp.671-674. [How things have changed for the better!].
“Any proposed build-up of research activities presumes that personnel well qualified in the natural and social sciences, in engineering and management are available in great numbers. This is not the case. Glamorous offers are placed before these men to work in space, missiles, medicine, and industrial research laboratories. Those in the field of stream pollution control have a huge selling job to do to attract capable workers to this field…”. Â
Challenges in research and development. Eliassen, R., 1963. Journal (Water Pollution Control Federation), pp.267-274.
“One reason for this slow progress is that biotechnology in general is driven large by scientific research initiatives (‘science push’), and environmental biotechnology in particular lacked the glamour of medical or agricultural applications. Scientists, students and research funds are more easily attracted to the new molecular biology that promises to cure cancer or to engineer high-yield rice than to the skills necessary to improve sewage disposal”.Â
The green face of biotechnology. Wald, S., 1994. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD Observer, (189), p.4.
“Sampling sewage may not appear to be the most glamorous application of modern science, but in future zoonotic disease outbreaks its systematic use can save us a lot of trouble”. Â
Wastewater warnings. Gross, M., 2021. Current Biology, 31(6), pp.R267-R269.
Eliassen (1963) also goes on to say, “Those engaged in research in this field must be able to convince others of the exciting work which can lie ahead in solving some of the great problems which face the whole area of water resources”; while Wald (1994) notes that “Another important reason for the late development of environmental biotechnology is that it lacks the same ‘natural’ R&D constituency as the medical and agricultural research sectors: its scope is too vast, complex and ill-defined”.
Let’s hope that the What is Environmental Biotechnology? paper goes a little way to addressing both of these issues…
What is Environmental Biotechnology? Widely applied, but a clear definition of the term is still needed. Heaven, S., Kusch-Brandt, S., Byfield, L., Bywater, A., Coulon, F., Curtis, T., Gutierrez, T., Higson, A. and Sadhukhan, J., 2025. Environments 2025, 12(10), 393; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments12100393