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Mankind has recognized the value of land plants as renewable sources of food, medicine, and materials for millennia. Throughout human history, agricultural methods were continuously modified and improved to meet the changing needs of civilization. Today, our rapidly growing population requires further innovation to address the practical limitations and serious environmental concerns associated with current industrial and agricultural practices. Microalgae are a diverse group of unicellular photosynthetic organisms that are emerging as next-generation resources with the potential to address urgent industrial and agricultural demands. The extensive biological diversity of algae can be leveraged to produce a wealth of valuable bioproducts, either naturally or via genetic manipulation. Microalgae additionally possess a set of intrinsic advantages, such as low production costs, no requirement for arable land, and the capacity to grow rapidly in both large-scale outdoor systems and scalable, fully contained photobioreactors. Here, we review technical advancements, novel fields of application, and products in the field of algal biotechnology to illustrate how algae could present high-tech, low-cost, and environmentally friendly solutions to many current and future needs of our society. We discuss how emerging technologies such as synthetic biology, highthroughput phenomics, and the application of internet of things (IoT) automation to algal manufacturing technology can advance the understanding of algal biology and, ultimately, drive the establishment of an algal-based bioeconomy.

Summary Diatoms are one of the most productive and successful photosynthetic taxa on Earth and possess attributes such as rapid growth rates and production of lipids, making them candidate sources of renewable fuels. Despite their significance, few details of the mechanisms used to regulate growth and carbon metabolism are currently known, hindering metabolic engineering approaches to enhance productivity.To characterize the transcript level component of metabolic regulation, genome‐wide changes in transcript abundance were documented in the model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana on a time‐course of silicon starvation. Growth, cell cycle progression, chloroplast replication, fatty acid composition, pigmentation, and photosynthetic parameters were characterized alongside lipid accumulation.Extensive coordination of large suites of genes was observed, highlighting the existence of clusters of coregulated genes as a key feature of global gene regulation in T. pseudonana. The identity of key enzymes for carbon metabolic pathway inputs (photosynthesis) and outputs (growth and storage) reveals these clusters are organized to synchronize these processes.Coordinated transcript level responses to silicon starvation are probably driven by signals linked to cell cycle progression and shifts in photophysiology. A mechanistic understanding of how this is accomplished will aid efforts to engineer metabolism for development of algal‐derived biofuels.