Advances in biological engineering are likely to have substantial impacts on global society. To explore these potential impacts Arkurity Principle Edward Perello contributed to a horizon scanning exercise to capture a range of perspectives on the opportunities and risks presented by biological engineering. The group first identified 70 potential issues, and then used an iterative process to prioritise 20 issues that we considered to be emerging, to have potential global impact, and to be relatively unknown outside the field of biological engineering. The issues identified may be of interest to researchers, businesses and policy makers in sectors such as health, energy, agriculture and the environment.