Rare-earth elements (REEs) are critical components of low-carbon technologies and advanced defense systems. However, their conventional extraction and separation processes, which rely on energy-intensive hydrometallurgy with harsh chemical reagents, pose significant environmental challenges. Synthetic biology offers a transformative alternative by enabling the programmable dissolution, precise molecular recognition, and selective capture of REEs under mild conditions. Specifically, engineered microbes can be designed to secrete tailored organic acids, siderophores, and redox-active metabolites for bioleaching REEs from ores, tailings, and industrial wastes. Concurrently, high-affinity biological binders—such as lanmodulin, lanthanide-binding peptides, and de novo-designed proteins—provide picomolar-level affinity and tunable selectivity ideal for biosorption. The integration of these functional motifs into advanced platforms, including immobilized sorbents, magnetic composites, and elastin-like polypeptides, enables continuous and regenerable REE recovery with minimal chemical input. Collectively, these biological strategies support an environmentally considerable approach to REE extraction and separation from diverse sources. Future efforts should focus on machine-learning-guided protein design, enhancing biomolecule stability, developing integrated leaching-adsorption bioreactors, improving tolerance to complex leachates, and incorporating biological modules into industrial flowsheets. These advances collectively establish synthetic biology as the foundation for a new paradigm in sustainable rare-earth production.

Etoposide, a DNA damage-inducing agent, is widely used for malignant tumors. However, insufficient solubility, poor bioavailability and adverse events limited the treatment outcomes and prognosis. To address this, we here developed a novel biosynthetic and unfolded protein nanocarrier to load and deliver Etoposide. Compared with the pristine agent, the loading efficiency of the nanoformulated drug increased four times and the half-life time increased to 17.6 h with controlled release of the Etoposide for 6 days. The half-maximal inhibitory concentration at 48 h was lower than that at 24 h, suggesting a long-acting anti-tumor property. Moreover, the anti-tumor performance in rat models was significantly enhanced by improving solubility and cellular internalization. Additionally, immunogenicity and adverse toxicologic effects such as kidney and liver toxicity were significantly weakened. Therefore, the assembly strategy enables etoposide with higher efficacy, bioavailability, and safety, and has great potential in the comprehensive treatment of malignant tumors.