The chemical industry is undergoing a transformation towards more efficient and sustainable production processes. This transformation is driven by a dramatic development in the field of biological science, where in recent years we have been able to decode complex biological systems, as well as to reconstruct properties identified by this decoding in the laboratory. These technologies now enable us to design microorganisms that are capable of producing the chemical building blocks, such as plastics and fuel, on which our industrialised communities depend. The lecture will describe this development with examples of existing biological production systems, as well as provide an insight into what the future might bring.