Image courtesy of Mel Poole on Unsplash
For more than 35 years, the apparel industry has been using more synthetic materials. With convenience comes problems. Synthetic fibers come from petroleum byproducts that take hundreds of years to biodegrade. This is bad for the environment, which in turn is bad for humans and other living beings on the planet.
Innovation in the fashion industry is badly needed. Fabrics made from renewable sources that are non-toxic, biodegradable, and high-performing would be ideal. A company called Good Fibes is working on solving that problem.
At Good Fibes, they are using cellular agriculture techniques in a lab setting to engineer protein-based fibers. Two Syracuse University graduates, Alexis Peña and Lauren Blake, are working on the solution.
“Since summer 2022, Lauren and I have embarked on understanding the fashion industry ecosystem to provide innovative solutions for the current challenges,” says Peña. “At Good Fibes, we’re developing methods for biomanufacturing natural textile fibers using biological building blocks. Our mission is to enable a circular textile economy through material innovation.”
Read about other pioneers in this area.