Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology has evolved to become an established go-to open access publishing option for multidisciplinary bioengineering and biotechnology research and in the process has grown considerably over the last few years achieving our first Journal Impact Factor 2018 in 2019. Here we are pleased to introduce this special eBook entitled ‘Highlights from Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology in 2020’ edited by our 10 Specialty Chief Editors of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology aiming to support Frontiers’ strong community by recognizing highly deserving authors. The work presented here highlights the broad diversity of exciting research performed across the journal and aims to put a spotlight on few areas of interest within each section. This collection showcases one or two exceptional articles published in 2020 per section of the journal. Each article has been specially handpicked by each of our 10 Specialty Chief Editors who have written a short paragraph to explain their selection and why this article is a particularly important and exciting addition to their respective fields. Our eBook thus spans Biomaterials, Biomechanics, Bionics and Biomimetics, Bioprocess Engineering, Biosafety and Biosecurity, Industrial Biotechnology, Nanobiotechnology, Preclinical Cell and Gene Therapy, Synthetic Biology and Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. All research presented here displays advances in the field of Bioengineering and Biotechnology. We hope you enjoy our selection of key articles; please ensure you are signed into your Frontiers Loop profile to download the free eBook. We also thank all authors, editors and reviewers of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology for their contributions to our journal and look forward to another exciting year in 2021. Dr. Ranieri Cancedda (Field Chief Editor)

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

The preservation of forests, sustainable forest management (SFM), forest landscape restoration (FLR) and the need to make the most of precious forest resources are priority issues in the policy and sustainable development agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. Innovation will be key in the coming decades to meet the increasing demand for wood and other forest products while halting and reversing deforestation, in line with the commitment taken at COP26 in Glasgow by the international community. However, uptake of innovative technologies has been slow and uneven in the Asia-Pacific region, and there remains a gap between political commitments and the investments – in education, capacity building, and infrastructure development – required to put them into practice. This technical report examines the potential and barriers to disseminating and deploying innovative technologies for SFM in the region and provides overarching recommendations and specific options for decision-makers. It delineates and informs the process by which decision-makers and actors can identify: the potential of innovative technologies to advance SFM; their potential impacts; constraints to technology uptake and scaling up, and how to overcome these constraints and facilitate adoption.

Over the past few decades, the increasing requirement for green chemistry and nanotechnology led to the adoption of green synthetic routes for the synthesis of nanomaterials using plants, microorganisms, and others. Hence, the green synthesis of nanomaterials has been considered by researchers through an eco-friendly path, which has led to much research in recent years on the synthesis of nanomaterials using plants as a non-toxic, cost-effective, accessible, easy, and environmentally friendly synthetic pathway. Synthesized nanomaterials through green chemistry are non-toxic and can be a good choice for medical applications such as drug delivery, imaging, biotechnology, and biomedical. In the case of drug delivery, these nanomaterials can be a launching pad for the treatment of many diseases such as cancer. The synthesis of nanomaterials will be done with widely synthetic routes including physical, chemical, and biosynthetic routes which are very usual. Commonly, the used chemical methods are too expensive and employ hazardous and toxic chemicals which impose various risks to the environment. The biosynthetic route is a safe, biocompatible, environment-friendly green approach to synthesize nanomaterials using plants and microorganisms for biomedical applications. This synthesis can be carried out with fungi, algae, bacteria, and plants, etc. Some parts of plants such as leaves, fruits, roots, stems, seeds have been used for the synthesis of various nanomaterials. According to the unique characters of green-synthesized nanomaterials, they can be a very suitable choice for medical applications such as drug delivery, imaging, MRI, and etc. with the purpose of treating a variety of diseases.

Dr. Datta Madamwar holds a provisional patent related to the theme of this Research Topic. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Professor Bruce Ramsay holds a patent for a method of synthesising medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoate. All other Guest Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Existing culture systems have a limited ability to reproduce the complicated and dynamic microenvironment of a functioning organ. To solve the issues of conventional culture techniques, multidisciplinary researchers, involving medical doctors, stem cell and developmental biology experts, engineers and physical scientists, have emerged to innovate methods and devices. A microfluidic organ-on-a-chip (μOOC) is a cell culture device, based on microfluidic technology, which contains continuously perfused chambers with cells to simulate organ-level physiology/pathology. The μOOC is not to build a whole living organ, but rather to synthesize minimal functional units that recapitulate organ-/tissue-level functions. The μOOC can be applied to study not only the convention stimulation on cells by molecular/drugs, but also physical forces (fluid shear stress, cyclic strain and mechanical compression), organ-specific cell-cell intercommunication, and organ-organ coupling responses. There is an emerging need for innovative approaches for the production, control, analysis, and utilization of the μOOC, and even the multiple interconnected μOOC (Human-on-a-Chip). Although the μOOC has attracted much attention and is continuous being studied, there are still many difficult problems to be solved. Some of the most mentioned challenges include microenvironmental (biochemical, biophysical, biomechanical, nutrient, etc.) control, modeling tissue–tissue and multiorgan interactions, and reducing variability (automated control, high-throughput manipulation/analysis, integration of biosensing and etc.).