Bioengineering in Extreme Environments is an engaging text that supports students' education in both technology and the natural world. Students learn about natural science, human body responses, and various technologies that enable or could enable humans to thrive in extreme environments. The text demystifies technology for readers, demonstrating that many technologies are simply well-developed solutions to everyday problems. Over the course of 11 chapters, students visit Death Valley, Antarctica, the Great Salt Lake, Chernobyl, Jupiter, Mt. Everest, and other extreme locations to learn about their environments, effects on the human body, and the types of technology they each would require for human survival. Each chapter includes learning objectives, the core text, and instructions and assignments for small groups. Students are challenged to work together to cultivate knowledge, complete interactive homework assignments, and answer thought-provoking questions. Embracing active learning and interdisciplinary knowledge-building, Bioengineering in Extreme Environments is an ideal textbook for undergraduate general education courses in science and the natural world.

This book brings together in-depth information on a wide array of bio-engineering topics and their application to enhance human health, performance, comfort, and survival in extreme environments. Contributions from biomedical engineering, information systems, medicine and physiology, and medical engineering are presented in relation to a broad range of harsh and extreme environmental scenarios, including underwater, terrestrial (both natural and man-made), and space travel. Physicians, engineers, and scientists, as well as researchers and graduate students, will find the book to be an invaluable resource. Details effects of extreme environments on human physiology; Presents human-environment interaction in different scenarios; Overview of engineering challenges and problems in extreme environments.

This book provides an intriguing look at how life can adapt to many different extreme environments. It addresses the limits for life development and examines different strategies used by organisms to adapt to different extreme environments.

Enzymes are nature’s biocatalysts empowered with high catalytic power and remarkable substrate specificity. Enzymes perform a wide range of functions throughout nature, and guide the biochemistry of life with great precision. The majority of enzymes perform under conditions considered normal for mesophilic, neutrophilic, terrestrial microorganisms. However, the Earth’s biosphere contains several regions that are extreme in comparison, such as hypersaline lakes and pools, hydrothermal vents, cold oceans, dry deserts and areas exposed to intensive radiation. These areas are inhabited by a large number of extremophilic microorganisms which produce enzymes capable of functioning in unusual conditions. There is an increasing biotechnological and industrial demand for enzymes stable and functioning in harsh conditions, and over the past decade screening for, isolation and production of enzymes with unique and extreme properties has become one of the foremost areas of biotechnology research. The development of advanced molecular biology tools has facilitated the quest for production of enzymes with optimized and extreme features. These tools include large-scale screening for potential genes using metagenomics, engineering of enzymes using computational techniques and site-directed mutagenesis and molecular evolution techniques. The goal of this Research Topic is to present reports on latest advances in enzymes from all types of extreme environments. Contributions dealing with isolation of enzymes from extremophilic microorganisms or directly from natural environments, screening for and expression of enzymes with extreme properties using metagenomic approaches are welcome. In addition, contributions dealing with all forms of biocatalyst production and improvement are welcome, such as fermentation technology, protein engineering, directed evolution, rational design, and immobilization techniques.

Biological systems are regulated by the thermodynamic parameters of pressure and temperature. New analytical and computational methods and various kinds of spectroscopy allow detailed studies of the structure and function of biological systems under extreme conditions, as well as the possibility to explicate the origin and evolution of life. This volume addresses researchers and students exploring the new world of biological systems under extreme environmental conditions.

The extreme microbiomes are those microorganisms thriving under extreme conditions where no other living being will have any chance to survive. The extreme habitats are those presenting high temperatures (thermophiles), low temperature (psychrophiles), hypersaline environments (halophiles), low and high pH (Acidophiles/alkaliphiles), high pressure (Piezophiles) are distributed worldwide. The extreme habitats have proved to offer a unique reservoir of genetic diversity and biological source of extremophiles. The extremophilic microbial diversity and their biotechnological potential use in agricultural and industrial applications will be a milestone for future needs. Extremophiles and their cell components, therefore, are expected to play an important role in the chemical, food, pharmaceutical, paper and textile industries as well as environmental biotechnology.

Some microorganisms only live and survive under extreme environmental conditions. This summary presents the results of a five-year research project launched to search the world's most extreme environments for such microorganisms growing under conditions of strong pH, temperature, salinity or pressure. Interesting extremophiles ("Superbugs") found during this search were studied with respect to their DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, polysaccharides as well as tolerance mechanisms, metabolic pathways, and gene expression. In some cases, tough industrial enzymes stable at higher temperatures or tolerating toxic industrial solvents such as toluene etc., were identified. Their unique properties are of help in establishing a new biotechnology.

Many organisms in deep-sea environments are extremophiles thriving in extreme conditions: high pressure, high or low temperature, or high concentrations of inorganic compounds. This book presents the microbiology of extremophiles living in the deep sea and describes the isolation, cultivation, and taxonomic identification of microorganisms retrieved from the Mariana Trench, the world's deepest point. Also explained are techniques for recovering pressure-loving bacteria, the barophiles (piezophiles), and for whole genome analysis of Bacillus halodurans C-125. Physiological analysis of the pressure effect in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli is used to answer the question of how deep-sea organisms survive under high hydrostatic pressure. These research results are useful in both basic science and industrial applications. Readers discover a new microbial world in the ocean depths, with state-of-the-science information on extremophiles.

A diverse account of how life exists in extreme environments and these systems' susceptibility and resilience to climate change.