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

这个工程生物学使命奖项目是一个为期2年的密集计划，旨在利用合成生物学和微生物发酵，迅速为全球工业中污染最严重的行业之一带来清洁增长的好处：时尚。该项目汇集了一组位于纽卡斯尔和伦敦的专家团队，以及通过使用微生物制造的产品来改变时尚行业的英国中小企业和初创企业。我们的联合研究工作将致力于快速转变生物生产的一个令人兴奋的，创新的和环保的产品，可以迅速被时尚界采用：微生物皮革。我们将开发和优化各种可持续和高效的生物制造工艺，用于生产基于细菌纤维素的一类微生物皮革，这是一种高产量、低成本的高性能生物材料，来自康普茶发酵中发现的细菌。我们的项目旨在使用工程生物学方法来立即提高生产这种微生物皮革的环保制造过程的效率。我们将共同努力设计细菌菌株，并使用合成生物学方法，以实现废物原料的高效利用，高效的水和养分利用，以及创新的生物基处理，以获得理想的性能，如着色，图案，涂层和添加剂。这项工作的社会目标是为微生物皮革生产和报废创造可持续和可再生的循环经济过程。该项目将通过减少皮革替代品生产中的碳排放和石化使用，为英国的净零目标做出贡献。值得注意的是，时尚是英国经济增长的关键部门，但完全依赖于全球纺织业，该行业造成了全球10%的碳排放，产生了20%的废水和35%的海洋微塑料污染。到2050年，该行业预计将使用全球碳预算的25%，因此，如果世界要实现其可持续发展目标，它是清洁增长创新的关键目标。在时尚界使用的所有材料中，皮革的问题尤其严重，因为牛是森林砍伐的主要驱动力，而Chrome鞣制会造成广泛的化学污染。没有任何其他材料能与其全面的负面影响相提并论，目前的塑料皮革替代品在使用寿命结束时需要焚烧或填埋，因此不是理想的替代品。为了使微生物皮革成为世界上使用的牛皮的理想替代品，我们需要解决4个主要技术挑战：1：减少在细菌纤维素生长中使用昂贵的糖的需求2：消除对材料染色和图案化的单独过程的需求3：消除对石油化学衍生的添加剂和有毒交联方法的依赖4：提高耐用性，但仍能确保在使用寿命结束时自然降解我们的目标是通过利用工程生物学，以最少的步骤实现高效的材料制造和可控的改性，以应对这些挑战。我们将通过工程酶，微生物和微生物群落（E。大肠杆菌、酵母菌、芽孢杆菌和Komagataeibacter）与理想的英国行业合作伙伴合作; Colorifix、Modern Synthesis和Brewlab，在他们的帮助下，我们将进行中试规模的生产运行和工艺测试，为了确保影响力和未来，我们还将与更广泛的利益相关者接触，例如目标工业消费者，时装设计师和可持续发展分析师，可以帮助我们确定理想的市场路线。在这个项目中，我们将通过帮助用低影响、高度可取的微生物制造的替代品取代皮革，加速英国在时尚清洁增长方面的领导地位。

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.