Environmental quality is a major factor in global health that mainly affects the poorest populations. Vectorborne diseases, climate change, pollution and unintentional poisonings are recognized as the primary causes of environmental diseases burden in developing countries. The development and implementation of new technologies to reduce the impact of these risk factors on health in developing countries is a priority in the current research. In this regard, synthetic biology, a nearly new research area, has initiated a big revolution through the de novo design or rewiring of biological components, organisms, and functions with the aim to reduce the adverse effects of environmental risk factors on human health. Despite synthetic biology is well recognized for being a multidisciplinary area where biotechnologist, biologist, physicists, mathematicians and engineers play together, its integration with public health and other social sciences seems to be of relevance to apply these technologies into a practical context. In this review, we discuss the major advances in synthetic biology with potential to improve environmental quality and human health in developing countries.Keywords: Public health. Synthetic biology. Developing countries. Environmental diseases. RESUMENLa calidad ambiental es reconocida como uno de los factores con mayor impacto sobre la salud humana principalmente en los países en vías de desarrollo. Las enfermedades transmitidas por vectores, el cambio climático, la contaminación y las intoxicaciones no intencionales han sido reportados como las principales causas de enfermedades ambientales en estos países. El desarrollo y la implementación de nuevas tecnologías encaminadas a reducir el impacto de estos factores ambientales en la salud es una prioridad de la investigación actual. En ese sentido, la biología sintética ha iniciado una gran revolución al permitir el diseño de novo y el mejoramiento de diversos componentes biológicos, organismos y funciones biológicas que tienen el potencial de reducir los efectos adversos de estos factores en la salud humana de una manera más eficiente y económica. A pesar de que la biología sintética es reconocida como un área multidisciplinaria donde biotecnólogos, biólogos, físicos, matemáticos e ingenieros unen sus esfuerzos, su integración con el área de la salud pública y las ciencias sociales es muy importante para llevar estas tecnologías a la práctica. En esta revisión, nosotros discutimos los más importantes avances en biología sintética y su potencial para mejorar la calidad ambiental y la salud humana en países en vías de desarrollo.
This paper presents the elaboration process and scope of the voluntary Mexican Standard for Sustainable Building (NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013), headed by the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry. The NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013 standard emerges from the Mexican government's need to have a regulatory instrument that impacts the current construction practices, leading them to a more sustainable model of edification, which contributes to the environmental protection, the integration of buildings within the city and its surroundings, the health and comfort of the building occupants and people's productivity. A multidisciplinary working group was jointed for drafting the document, comprising members of academy, industry, civil society and federal and local government. The starting point was the existing regulation and then setting higher levels of environmental performance and not only in the traditional schemes, such as energy efficiency and water use, but increasing its range by adding a new vision to the relationship between buildings and the city and with the environment, also the social responsibility and a life cycle approach. The Standard focuses on five different topics: Territory, Energy, Water, Materials and Waste, Environmental Quality and Social Responsibility. Each of these topics was established with mandatory and optional components. Once we have described the content of the Standard, we do a comparative analysis with other international certifications, especially with BREAM and LEED, looking for convergence points and the features given for the national context.
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