Making corn salt-tolerant by engineering its microbiome. Increasing nut productivity with fungal symbiosis. Cleaning up toxic metals in the water supply with algae. Capturing soil nutrient runoff with bacterial biofilms. These were the bio-sustainability innovations designed and presented by students in the Department of Biological Engineering (BE) last May. With the sun shining brightly on an empty Killian Court, the students gathered for the final class presentations over Zoom, physically distanced due to the Covid-19-related closing of MIT’s campus this spring. For decades, the sustainable technologies dominating public discourse have…
