Overview

In British Columbia and elsewhere, key environmental issues relate to: clean air, land and water; maintaining biodiversity; and ensuring sustainable use of biological resources, in the face of climate change.

The environment is truly a global concern. Innovative applications play an increasingly important role in protecting our environment. Solutions grounded in genomics that remove, reduce, stabilize or prevent environmental pollutants, or help to address climate change, will contribute to the protection of the environment. 

Building on British Columbia’s expertise in bio-remediation and a culture that is accepting of innovation, new genome-based applications are likely to have a significant impact on a global scale. Assessing, monitoring and mitigating impact on the environment are also highly relevant to agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining; consequently the potential for cross-sector impact from new application is significant.

Genome BC has numerous research projects that are tackling environmental challenges by developing applications and tests to measure clean land and water; biodiversity, sustainable uses of biological resources and help discover novel bioactive products used in medicines, bioremediation agents or industrial enzymes.

Genome BC’s current research projects on environment:

• Population genomics of Haida Gwaii
• Applied Metagenomics of the Watershed Microbiome

Click here to read about Genome BC’s completed research projects on environment.