Reinventing the (Spinning) Wheel: Maps to Scale Bacterial-Grown Materials

Abstract

As we move to decarbonize and transition to a sustainable economy, we can tap into nature’s intelligence to find materials whose properties often surpass those manufactured by industry. However, accessible biomaterials that can be extracted from nature represent only a small fraction of biology’s repertoire. The emergence of synthetic biology presents the opportunity to essentially code matter - creating a vast array of bio-inspired materials with increased functionality and design. At the same time, it beckons a new era of manufacturing that could potentially reduce environmental impact in a world besieged by the damaging legacy left by the industrial revolution, with textiles being some of the most egregious offenders. Each stage of a textiles’ cradle-to-grave journey is ripe with environmental consequences and represents one of the most polluting industries on our planet. Solutions from synthetic biology and beyond offer reprieve but must overcome challenges that come with scale and not without its own faults and required caution.

After nine months of immersion in this realm – conversations with researchers and founders spanning bacterial-grown silk, nanodots, and food proteins, hours in lab engineering E. coli to make products ranging from coral dyes and squid proteins to biocement, a wealth of knowledge from industry speakers like Gingko Bioworks and TWIST Bioscience, and thousands of pages of industry reports, articles, and literature, this report explores the root causes of the negative externalities attributed to the textile industry and paths to redesign with biosynthetic materials in order to collectively build a better system.