Creating a Sustainable Future with Microbes

Feeding an ever-growing world’s population is one the biggest challenges facing humanity. Therefore, we need to develop novel and more efficient ways of producing food, whilst minimising the environmental impacts of agriculture. Although synthetic nitrogen fertilisers support extensive agriculture, their overuse leads to a series of environmental and economic problems. In this talk, I will share how my research aims to use soil bacteria to support the fertilisation of crops towards more sustainable agriculture.

Fast fashion is the one of the most polluting industries in the world. At Colorifix, we are developing a new process to produce pigments and dye fabrics with a fraction of the carbon footprint, electricity and water usage of petrochemical dyes. We are using synthetic biology to convert microbial cells into pigment-producing factories that can be used to apply the colour to the fabric.