Sustainable Style for Clean Growth: Innovating Textile Production through Engineering Biology

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This Engineering Biology Mission Award project is an intensive 2-year program designed to use synthetic biology and microbial fermentation to rapidly bring Clean Growth benefits to one the worst-polluting sectors of global industry: fashion. The project brings together a set of expert teams based in Newcastle and London with UK SMEs and start-ups that are transforming the fashion sector via their use of microbially-made products. Our combined research efforts will be put to task on rapidly transforming the biological production of an exciting, innovative and environmentally friendly product that can rapidly be adopted by the fashion sector: microbial leather. We will develop and optimise a variety of sustainable and efficient biomanufacturing processes for producing a class of microbial leather based on bacterial cellulose, a high-performance biomaterial grown in high yield at low cost from the bacteria found in Kombucha fermentations. Our project is designed to use engineering biology approaches to immediately increase the efficiency of the environmentally friendly manufacturing process of producing this microbial leather. We will work together to engineer bacterial strains and use synthetic biology methods to enable high efficiency use of waste feedstocks, efficient water and nutrient usage, and innovative bio-based treatments for desirable properties, such as colouration, patterns, coatings and additives. The societal goal of this work is to create sustainable and renewable processes for a circular economy for microbial leather production and end-of-life. The project will contribute to the UK's Net-Zero targets by reducing carbon emissions and petrochemical use in the production of leather alternatives. Notably fashion is a crucial sector for UK economic growth but is entirely dependent on the global textiles industry, an industry that causes up to 10% of global carbon emissions, produces 20% of wastewater and 35% of marine microplastic pollution. This industry is projected to use up to 25% of the global carbon budget by 2050, and as such it is a key target for innovation for clean growth if the world is to meet its sustainability goals. Of all materials used in fashion, leather is particularly problematic, as cattle are the leading driver of deforestation, and chrome tanning creates widespread chemical pollution. No other material comes close for its all-round negative impact, and current plastics-based leather alternatives require incineration or landfill at their end of life, and so are not the desired alternative. For microbial leather to emerge as the ideal replacement to the world's use of bovine leather, we need to address 4 main technical challenges: 1: Reducing the need for using expensive sugar in the growth of bacterial cellulose 2: Removing the need to have separate processes for dyeing and patterning a material 3: Removing reliance on petrochemical-derived additives and toxic crosslinking methods 4: Improving durability but be able to still ensure natural degradation at end-of-life We aim to address these challenges by leveraging engineered biology for efficient material fabrication and controllable modification in a minimal number of steps. We will do this by engineering enzymes, microbes and microbial communities (E. coli, yeast, bacillus and Komagataeibacter) doing so in collaboration with the ideal set of UK industry partners; Colorifix, Modern Synthesis and Brewlab, With their help we will conduct pilot-scale production runs and process tests, and to ensure impact and a future beyond this award we will also engage with wider stakeholders, such as target industrial consumers, fashion designers and sustainability analysts that can help us determine the ideal route-to-market. In doing this project we will accelerate the UK's leadership in clean growth in fashion by helping replace leather with a low-impact, highly desirable microbially-made alternative.