Week 1 HW: Final Project Ideas

What would you like to biomanufacture and why?

If I could biomanufacture anything without any limitations, I would like to develop an “all-season-proof clothing material.” Although we have clothing designed specifically for winter and summer, it is difficult to find clothing that is comfortable to wear throughout the entire year, especially during the transition between seasons (especially in South Korea due to the humidity). Therefore, I would like to create a material that can automatically adjust to the surrounding weather and temperature.

My idea is to develop a porosity-adaptive material that can change its structure depending on the environment. During the summer, the material would increase its porosity, allowing more air to pass through and helping release heat and absorb sweat. In contrast, during the winter, the material would decrease its porosity, reducing airflow and helping retain body heat. Ideally, the material would be able to respond naturally to changes in temperature and humidity without requiring the inconvenience to change clothes.

I was initially inspired by my own experience. I tend to sweat easily during the summer but also get cold easily during the winter, so finding clothing that is comfortable throughout the year can be difficult. However, I began to wonder whether there were many other people who experienced the same problem. This led me to think, “What if there are people like me all around the world?”

This idea became even more meaningful to me after seeing how people in different parts of the world are increasingly affected by extreme climate conditions. From extremely high temperatures that can damage infrastructure to freezing conditions that make everyday activities difficult, climate change is creating challenges that people have to adapt to. I’ve seen on social media from people seeing the asphalt melt to tires to people having their laundry freeze in the air in an instant even if it was for the content. Although clothing alone cannot solve global warming, I believe that developing materials that help people adapt to changing environmental conditions could contribute to a more sustainable future. An all-season material could also reduce the need to own and produce separate clothing for different seasons, potentially reducing material consumption and waste.

What living system would you use?

I would use genetically engineered microorganisms, such as bacteria or yeast, as the living system. These microorganisms could be designed to produce specialized proteins or biopolymers that respond to changes in temperature and humidity. By controlling the structure of these biomaterials, I would aim to create a fabric whose porosity can naturally increase or decrease depending on the surrounding environment. This would allow the material to become more breathable in hot conditions and better at retaining heat in cold conditions. I saw in one of the articles provided that through the advances through high-throughput technologies and more automated workflows it plays a major role in in helping the automated workflows to prosper in biomanufacturing.

How would you use automation?

I would only imagine being assisted by automation in current day-use clothing automation. Style is a fashion these days and material that lasts is one of the key importance in today’s fashion. I would use automation to control and optimize the production of the adaptive clothing material. Automated systems could monitor factors such as temperature, humidity, pH, and nutrient levels while the engineered microorganisms produce the biomaterial. Sensors could continuously collect data and automatically adjust the conditions to maximize the production and quality of the material. Automation could also be used to test the fabric under different temperatures and humidity levels, allowing the system to determine whether the material is changing its porosity as intended. This would make the manufacturing process more consistent, efficient, and scalable.

How much would you need to make, and how long would it take?

In a realistic view, the attempts to automate a first successful product would take years. In time I can’t imagine how long it would take. But if it were possible, I would take the time to test if it were sustainable for long periods of time. This wouldn’t mean I would let the material rot for longs periods of time, but would require more testing for its durability. Once the material is proven to work, I would need to scale up production to several tons of material to manufacture enough fabric for large-scale clothing production. The initial research and development could take several months to a few years, since the material would need to be tested under different temperatures and humidity levels to make sure it is safe, durable, and effective. With automated biomanufacturing systems, large-scale production could eventually be carried out continuously, allowing the material to be produced efficiently and consistently.

What don’t you know yet?

First of all, this isn’t an easy material to produce. It would take numerous efforts to reproduce the years it would have to be sustained through, including different climate extreme environments. But overall, there are still many things I do not know about this idea. One major question is whether the material could actually change its porosity quickly and reliably enough to respond to changing weather conditions. Predicting the weather itself is one big question but how fast the material would change is also a major complication. I would also need to determine how durable the material would be after repeated washing, stretching, and everyday use for a suitable amount of time.

Another concern is whether producing the material through microorganisms would actually be environmentally friendly. Although biomanufacturing could potentially reduce the environmental impact of traditional textile production, growing microorganisms on a large scale could still require significant amounts of energy, water, and nutrients. I would need to compare the environmental impact of this material with that of conventional clothing to determine whether it truly provides a sustainability benefit.

In addition, there could also be safety and cost concerns. The material would need to be safe for prolonged contact with human skin and should not release harmful substances as it changes its structure. In addition, if the material is too expensive to manufacture, it may not be accessible to many people at the start of release. Finally, I would need to consider what happens to the material when the clothing is thrown away. If it is made from a novel biological material, it would be important to know whether it can biodegrade or be recycled effectively since this is one of my priorities. The purpose of this material being produced was because of the belief that people wouldn’t adapt to the changing climate this effectively, so to make a more “bio-safe” material would be my ideal.

These are questions I had not fully considered when I first came up with the idea, and they would need to be addressed before the material could realistically be produced on a large scale.

Week 2 HW: DNA Design

Final Project