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

这个工程生物学任务奖项目是一个为期两年的密集项目，旨在利用合成生物学和微生物发酵为全球工业中污染最严重的行业之一--时尚业--迅速带来清洁增长的好处。该项目汇集了位于纽卡斯尔和伦敦的一组专家团队，以及正在通过使用微生物制造的产品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迅速转变一种令人兴奋、创新和环保的产品的生物生产，这种产品可以迅速被时尚行业采用：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，以生产一类基于细菌纤维素的微生物皮革，细菌纤维素是一种从康普茶发酵中发现的细菌获得高产量和低成本的高性能生物材料。我们的项目旨在使用工程生物学方法立即提高生产这种微生物皮革的环境友好型制造过程的效率。我们将合作设计细菌菌株，并使用合成生物学方法，以实现废物原料的高效利用、水和养分的高效利用，以及用于理想特性的创新生物处理，如着色剂、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流程。该项目将通过减少碳排放和在皮革替代品生产中使用石化产品，为英国的净零目标做出贡献。值得注意的是，时尚业是英国经济增长的关键行业，但完全依赖于全球纺织业，该行业产生了全球高达10%的碳排放，产生了20%的废水和35%的海洋微塑料污染。预计到2050年，该行业将使用高达全球碳预算的25%，因此，如果世界要实现其可持续发展目标，它将是清洁增长创新的关键目标。在时尚界使用的所有材料中，皮革问题尤其严重，因为牛是砍伐森林的主要驱动力，而铬制革会造成广泛的化学污染。没有其他材料能带来全面的负面影响，目前以塑料为基础的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革的理想替代品，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过程中使用昂贵的糖的需要2：消除对材料染色和构图的单独工艺的需要3：消除对石化衍生添加剂和有毒交联法的依赖4：提高耐久性，但仍然能够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进行高效的材料制造和以最少的步骤进行可控的修改来应对这些挑战。我们将通过对酶、微生物和微生物群落(大肠杆菌、酵母菌、芽孢杆菌和Komagataeibacter)进行工程设计来做到这一点，我们将与理想的英国行业合作伙伴合作；Colorifix、现代合成和酿酒实验室将在他们的帮助下进行中试生产和工艺测试，为了确保影响和超越该奖项的未来，我们还将与更广泛的利益相关者接触，如目标工业消费者、时尚设计师和可持续发展分析师，他们可以帮助我们确定理想的上市路线。在做这个项目时，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，加快英国在时尚业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.