Eben Bayer [Ecovative] – Are mushrooms the new plastic?

Andras Forgacs – Leather and meat without killing animals

By 2050, it will take 100 billion land animals to provide the world’s population with meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods. Maintaining this herd will take a huge, potentially unsustainable toll on the planet. What if there were a different way? In this eye-opening talk, tissue engineering advocate Andras Forgacs argues that biofabricating meat and leather is a civilized way to move past killing animals for hamburgers and handbags.

Why you should listen

An entrepreneur in tissue engineering, Andras Forgacs is the co-founder and CEO of Modern Meadow, a company developing novel biomaterials. These include cultured meat and leather which, as they put it, “will require no animal slaughter and much lower inputs of land, water, energy and chemicals”.  This approach involves sourcing cells from living animals, multiplying these cells into billions, and then assembling them into the tissue precursors of meat or leather. The products, for now, are at a prototype stage.

Previously, Andras co-founded Organovo, which uses 3D bioprinting to create human tissues for pharmaceutical research and medical applications, such as drug development and replacement tissues. Organovo’s bioprinting technology was recognized by MIT Technology Review on its TR50 list of most innovative companies for 2012.

What others say

“In-vitro meat is not far from entering the market. Modern Meadow, based in Missouri and California, is one of several startups that make meat using tissue engineering. In other words, it 3D-prints your steak. It has not yet finalized its products, but like Hampton Creek and Beyond Meat, it has attracted high-caliber venture capital funding, with money from PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs. ” — The Guardian, September 16, 2013

Natsai Audrey Chieza – Fashion has a pollution problem – can biology fix it?

Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer on a mission — to reduce pollution in the fashion industry while creating amazing new things to wear. In her lab, she noticed that the bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor makes a striking red-purple pigment, and now she’s using it to develop bold, color-fast fabric dye that cuts down on water waste and chemical runoff, compared with traditional dyes. And she isn’t alone in using synthetic biology to redefine our material future; think — “leather” made from mushrooms and superstrong yarn made from spider-silk protein. We’re not going to build the future with fossil fuels, Chieza says. We’re going to build it with biology.

Why you should listen

Natsai Audrey Chieza is Founder and Creative Director of Faber Futures, a creative R&D studio that conceptualizes, prototypes and evaluates the next generation of materials that are emerging through the convergence of biology, technology and design. The studio advocates a shift in thinking away from resource extraction to material systems that are grown within the limits of our planetary boundaries. Working with partners in academia and industry, she is at the forefront of defining the future of design in the context of the Anthropocene at the advent of enabling technologies like synthetic biology.

Chieza holds an MA (Hons) in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Material Futures from Central Saint Martins. She began her career in design research at Textile Futures Research Centre (UK), while also pursuing her own research interests in biofabrication at the Ward Lab, University College London (UK). During this time she co-curated exhibitions and public programmes including Big Data, Designing with the Materials of Life 2015 (UK), Alive En Vie, Fondation EDF, 2014 (FR) and Postextiles, London Design Festival 2011 (UK).

Chieza has been a Designer in Residence at Ginkgo Bioworks (US), IDEO (UK), Machines Room (UK), Swedish Arts Grants Committee (SE), and the Ward Lab, University College London (UK). Her work has been widely exhibited at world-renowned galleries and museums, including the Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), Science Gallery Dublin (IR), Bauhaus Dessau (DE), Audax Textile Museum (NL) and at industry institutions like Microsoft Research (US/UK) and Fondation EDF (FR).

She has taught on degree programmes that are transitioning to biomaterials and sustainable design at Central Saint Martins, The Bartlett and Istituto Marangoni. Chieza’s own body of work on biopigmented textiles has been featured in a number of leading publications, including WIRED, Next Nature, IDEO, Huffington Post, Viewpoint, Frame, Domus, LSN Global, Protein and FORM.

Suzanne Lee – Why ‘biofabrication’ is the next industrial revolution

What if we could “grow” clothes from microbes, furniture from living organisms and buildings with exteriors like tree bark? TED Fellow Suzanne Lee shares exciting developments from the field of biofabrication and shows how it could help us replace major sources of waste, like plastic and cement, with sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives.

Why you should listen

Suzanne Lee is the founder and CEO of Biofabricate, a platform nurturing collaboration for design and biology to grow the future of sustainable materials for consumer products. Biofabrication is highly disruptive new technologies enabling design to intersect with the building blocks of life itself. For the last five years, Lee has been the chief creative officer of Modern Meadow, a New York-based biotech startup growing collagen to manufacture animal-free bioleather materials.

Lee’s groundbreaking book Fashioning the Future: Tomorrow’s Wardrobe, was the first to articulate the future of fashion through science and technology. It remains a key text for designers, scientists and engineers wanting to glimpse the future of wearable technology.

Stefano Macuso, The Roots of Plant Intelligence