If you could ask a living material to help fix our mess, what would you grow first – packaging, panels, or leather? We sit down with Amanda from Fungi Solutions to share how mycelium turns waste streams into durable, lightweight, and compostable products that actually work at scale. From early experiments binding fashion off-cuts to refined packaging that replaces polystyrene, we map the practical steps, the surprises, and the mindset shift from manufacturing to collaboration with living systems.
We get specific on biofabrication: substrates, environmental tuning, and the difference between compressive strength and torsion when you’re eyeing the built environment. Amanda walks us through treatments and finishes – waterproofing, laser texturing, surface skins – and why designing for decomposition is a feature, not a flaw. We talk testing before certification, how to manage MOQs as a small team, and the honest limits today: organics are ready now, plastics need pretreatment and more R&D. Along the way, there’s additive manufacturing with mycelium pastes, sculptural interiors people refuse to throw away, and the sensory surprise of a material that feels like cork meets velvet.
Zooming out, we explore the circular economy infrastructure at a systems-level scale. From waste mapping, regional feedstock modelling, and how AI might supercharge biomaterials (automating humidity, predicting contamination, and powering local facilities). We celebrate community labs, open-source cultivation, and non-traditional pathways into STEM, because access fuels innovation. And there’s fresh news: mycelium leather is now available for distribution, with R&D underway to push performance and craft.
Suppose you are one of those wonderful humans who care about sustainable packaging, biomaterials for construction, regenerative manufacturing, or want to see fungi outcompete foam. In that case, this conversation offers an insightful take from someone who is actively pushing forward in this space.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to The Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast fromColabs, a transdisciplinary
innovation hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, Australia.
I'm your co-host, Sam Wise, andalongside my co-founder Andrew
Gray, we'll delve deep into theintersection of biology,
technology, and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovationinformed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
(01:00):
And then uh there was also someaudio processing issues I had
with the mics, which just madeit hard to edit, but I've
finally done it.
I've I've made it work.
So yeah, hopefully you enjoyedthis conversation with Amanda
from Fungi Solutions.
Um yeah, I thought it was areally exciting conversation,
and it's just so cool to see somany world-leading people doing
(01:24):
amazing things in biomaterialsand biodesign here in Australia.
Um yeah, so I highly recommendchecking out Fungi Solutions,
supporting them if you can.
Uh really cool concept.
It's just so great to see peoplefinding ways to replace
petrochemical plastics withbio-based alternatives that
could actually work at scale.
(01:45):
Uh, and this is one of them.
So, this is going to be one ofthe first in a series of, I
guess, um uh podcasts where westart to focus more on
biomaterials.
Um, it's just personally I findthem incredibly interesting, and
I also think it's a massivelever for systems change, so
from petrochemical plastics totoxic chemicals like PFAS and
(02:07):
other DWRs, which areessentially making us sterile
and slowly killing us and all ofthe rest of the living world.
We kind of need to betransitioning away from that.
Use it so exploring ways inwhich we can do biodesign using
green chemistry um basedprinciples and all of these
other sorts of things.
So, yeah, it's really excitingto see that more of this sort of
(02:29):
stuff is popping up, and wereally want to take an active
role at co-labs in supportingthat, whether that's through the
co-creation of a regenerativedesign studio, um, where we
might help with prototyping someideas and then exploring ways to
bring them, bring them to lifein a commercial context, um, or
whether it's helping set up anew community lab similar to
(02:52):
BioAquisitive to be able to makespace for biodesigners because
it's a bit of a different kindof demand from a lab space
perspective compared to likeyour PC2 lab space.
So, yeah, if anything like thatsounds interesting, definitely
get in contact with us becausewe're looking to co-create and
co-design something like thatwith others.
And we would love to hear fromyou.
And I guess we're bettertogether.
(03:13):
So let's collaborate, cooperate,and coordinate to make cool
things happen here on thebiomaterial front in Australia.
Anyway, I'll shut up now andI'll let the conversation roll.
And I yeah, look forward tohearing what you think.
Amanda, thanks so much forcoming onto the podcast today.
Um, it's been a long timecoming.
I feel like you've beensuccessfully avoiding coming in
(03:37):
for a chat for a while.
So I appreciate you letting usum letting us nab you down for a
moment to talk about all theawesome things that you do.
SPEAKER_02 (03:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Yeah, no worries.
So just um, I guess as a bit ofa context setter um for this.
So I thought it could be reallyinteresting to hear from your
perspective.
I guess, what is biodesign?
Like, what is that conceptually?
And what is the notion behinddesigning with living systems?
And why is that, I guess,appealing to you?
SPEAKER_02 (04:07):
That's a great question.
I think at its core, uh,biodesign is about designing
with life, with livingorganisms, um, and working with
natural systems.
Um, it's important that we uhview our uh collaborators or the
(04:32):
organisms that we work with asan active part of the process,
not just something that wemanufacture and extract from.
Um, that comes with its ownkinds of um uh focus and
attention to detail in terms ofcreating um flourishing,
(04:53):
thriving, and and nourishingsort of um materials, products,
um, but also the the systemsthat sit around those design
ideas as well.
So it's really um rethinkingthings um and looking at how we
can um fabricate things withlife um as a collaboration.
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
So on that note of fabricating with life, what is
biofabrication?
What like how would you explainthat to um someone who might not
be familiar with the field?
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
Yeah, I I think we can think about it similar to
the ways that we already makethings.
You need a scaffold um that uhcreates your material um or
whatever you're trying toproduce, but rather than
producing this um synthetically,we're asking our uh living
(05:57):
organisms to produce thisscaffold for us.
Um so our job as collaboratorsthere is to provide the right
environment, things like theright food source, um, control
waste and contamination to umencourage the life forms to
produce the materials that wewant.
SPEAKER_00 (06:16):
It sounds a lot like the concept of gardening.
Yes.
Um, which I mean, as abiologist, I see, you know,
microbiology and stuff in thelab as kind of like gardening on
a micro scale.
But it sounds like when you'relooking at doing this work with
biofabrication, um, and I lovethat you're using this word
collaboration, because yeah, youcan't necessarily force a plant
to grow.
You can't force a fungi to grow,but you can create the enabling
(06:40):
conditions.
unknown (06:40):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (06:41):
And it's that mindset shift from like command,
control, designing withprecision to I guess you kind of
have to allow the uncertaintyand the messiness of life and
knowing that life will find away, maybe the right way, maybe
a better way than you could haveeven thought before you um
decided to collaborate with thisliving system, which I think is
(07:02):
super exciting.
So I guess on that note, whatinspired you to focus on
biomaterials?
What was it that you kind of sawand then were like, yep, that to
me is super appealing, and Iwant to pursue that as a career
or even just an interest?
SPEAKER_02 (07:22):
Um I was very interested in the idea of
recycling from uh a very youngage, and I enjoyed the process
of reusing things and givingthem new life.
So I felt like I was alwaysquite attuned to uh looking at
(07:43):
the potential um in somethingand seeing like the value of the
resources there.
Um, as I sort of got into um myfield of study, which was
fashion design, um, I beganlooking for ways to recycle
waste textiles.
Um textiles is when you shredthem to cut a garment, those cut
(08:10):
fibers are no longer reallyusable.
Um so a significant portion ofwaste comes from just the
manufacturing process.
Um it's about 10 to 15 percentof the total fibre harvest.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So this is the off-cuts, right?
SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
Yeah, the off-cuts.
Um, so in my mind, that's areally significant volume of
resources that we're currentlynot tapping into.
Um I knew that it would bepossible to cultivate fungi on
scrap textiles.
Um, you know, they'll they'llgrow on plant-based waste
(08:54):
resources.
Um, and I thought that was suchan exciting opportunity to bond
um those materials intosomething new.
It turns out fungi are reallyfascinating as a material in a
whole um range of differentways.
Uh, so they they just reallytook my interest, and and
(09:16):
there's lots of scope forresearch and development in the
biomaterials field, inparticular with with fungi, but
uh across natural materials as awhole as well.
SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
Yeah, there is there's so much to learn from
the way nature designs and makesmaterials, and I think it's
incredibly exciting that we'rekind of almost going through a
renaissance now where it's like,well, yeah, it already is there
from the three and a halfbillion years or 3.8 billion
years of of evolution.
We just need to be able to lookand to see it uh and find ways
(09:48):
to relate with it moreeffectively.
Um so I guess that's reallyexciting to hear, I guess, your
backstory.
I I'm super curious.
So you were you just said thenorganic materials and binding
them.
So it wouldn't work with like acotton poly blend.
Or did you did you do any likere like was it only organic
materials that you werefascinated by?
(10:08):
Because I imagine like a lot ofclothes is poly, right?
SPEAKER_02 (10:11):
Yeah, a lot of clothes are blended fibers these
days.
There's some really interestingresearch around fungi and
synthetic materials as well.
So it's a whole branch of theresearch into what uh mushrooms
can do, but essentially theyhave incredibly adaptive
digestive systems.
So you can target and train themon different waste resources.
(10:35):
Um, something like a syntheticfiber is going to be a little
more challenging for them to tryand tackle for nutrients, but
they're very tenacious.
They'll they'll certainly giveit a go.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
Right.
And I guess so.
The premise behind why they'renot as good at breaking these
non-natural fibers down isbecause they haven't necessarily
come up against them in naturebefore.
So they haven't developed thecapacity to break them down.
Or I'm I'm super curious becauseI I know a little bit about
fungi.
I don't know much.
(11:06):
I know that unlike us, theydigest on the outside.
So they extreme enzymes into umthe environment around them and
use that to digest and breakdown things and then kind of
grab what they would like.
unknown (11:19):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
So, yeah, how how does all of that sort of work?
SPEAKER_02 (11:24):
Yeah, so the the underlying mechanism is that
digestive uh enzymes thatthey're excreting externally,
it's breaking apart thehydrocarbon bonds of uh what
they're digesting.
So that's the mechanism behindwhich we can remediate toxic
(11:44):
materials.
They're breaking apart thosebonds and um turning them into
simpler um forms.
Um they do the same thing withum some plastics.
Plastics just might need thingslike pre-treatment to be broken
down, like UV treatment, forexample, to make it more
(12:04):
accessible for them to get intothe material and digest it.
So it's a um uh plasticdecomposition with fungi um is
has some promising earlyresearch, but is not yet fully
out of the speculative stage.
Whereas recycling um organicmaterials, we know that the
(12:28):
fungi are going to eat those.
So it was a really accessibleplace to start in terms of uh
volume of impact that could becreated and recycling.
Um, but there's some reallyinteresting opportunities coming
along and some fascinatingresearch projects being
conducted around the world.
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
It sounds fascinating.
I can imagine or I could see aworld where there is um some
form of mechanical process or umor even like a just saying, like
a light-based process fortreatment, which then you can
collaborate with fungi whereyou're saying, hey, let us break
it down to make it a little bitmore digestible for you, and
then they can come in and sortof do that.
I can even see maybe like asynthetic biology sort of
(13:09):
situation or a almost like a howdo you create an ecosystem
around this?
Like, let's get some bacteriawith pet A's and Med A's, let's
put that into a slurry, and thenthe fungi can come along and
break down.
Like, do you know anyone who'staking that approach with
recycling where they go, hangon, it's never going to just be
fungi.
It's never gonna be justbacteria.
It's gonna be a symbiotic colonyof multiple different living
(13:33):
systems that create differentfood and waste streams between
them.
I don't know anyone necessarilydoing that, but I guess we're
still in the such early stagesof figuring out what each
individual can do that maybe wehaven't thought about how they
might work as a collective.
SPEAKER_02 (13:47):
Yeah, it's not quite that sophisticated yet, but it's
one of those areas where wecould be looking to nature for
how problems are already solvedto address some of the things
that we're struggling withcollectively.
SPEAKER_00 (14:03):
Yeah, we and there's no shortage of those problems,
that's for sure.
I um yeah, I do think that likeliving systems thinking and bio
biodesign and biofabricationmight hold many of the solutions
to quite a few of the problemsthat we have, at least in the in
the built or the materialenvironment side of things.
Um, but even like I mean, a lotof the problems we face
(14:26):
collectively are, well, exactlythat actually, they're
collective coordination failuresof humans who don't understand
long-term consequences.
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Um one thing that always strikes me is there's no
such thing as waste in nature.
Yeah.
What classic biomimicryprinciple.
Why do we have that as part ofour systems?
Um, we could go back to thedrawing board on a few of these
things and and redesign somemore effective and efficient
processes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:55):
So on that night, uh on that note rather, um,
designing for decomposition, allof this sort of stuff, is that
stuff so you maybe we should.
I'm sorry, this is verynon-linear.
So let's maybe we should twistit back a little bit um before I
start asking about that.
So you are the one of theco-founders and head of research
(15:17):
at Fungi Solutions.
Uh, on top of that, you're alsoa lecturer in sustainable
innovation um and fashion atRMIT, which you also studied
that course, which you're nowcoming back to teach, I assume.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Yeah, full circle.
I like that.
Even circular in your teachingmethods.
Um, so yeah, maybe tell us alittle bit about that journey.
We kind of got that you wereinterested in um, I guess,
biodesign and you were studyingthis as part of your research.
How can we look at fusing theseoffcuts together to um create
fashion items?
I believe you even had a runway,maybe at some point.
SPEAKER_02 (15:55):
I had a small grad collection.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Yeah, that counts.
That counts.
I like the like the the humblebrack or woods.
Like we won't take it down for amoment in grad collection, but
um, yeah, I remember that.
That was super cool.
Um, but yeah, like talk talk usthrough how this idea for fungi
solutions came about.
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
Sure.
Um, so the interest, as wechatted about, started as a way
to utilize textile waste andtextile scraps.
Um, fungi are incredibledigesters of organic material
and also um have this veryinteresting property of being
(16:33):
like natural glue.
They fuse things together, theywant to be cohesive, they want
to join.
Um, so it introduced some reallyinteresting material properties.
And myceliums had, you know,some time now to sort of um have
(16:53):
a lot of people experimentingwith it.
Um, this would have come in theearly days from uh culinary
mushroom cultivation at the endof that process when you grow
your mushrooms, you're left withthe block of roots, which is the
mycelium.
Um, and this is what we make ourbiomaterials out of.
(17:17):
Um, mycelium left over from thatprocess has traditionally been
composted or made into mulch.
It's incredibly aerating and itimproves water retention and
soil health.
So it's amazing for that.
But it has so much life andpotential just in that middle
(17:37):
part of the process because itis a uh near-perfect natural
replacement for polystyrene andanywhere you'd use molded
plastics.
So it has these incredibleproperties of being lightweight,
super durable, very strong.
(17:59):
Um, it's acoustically andthermally insulating, as well as
fire retardant, can be grown onwaste and sequesters carbon.
So we're we're looking at somereally amazing credentials as a
material, um, but also a hugeamount of scope to work with it
and uh explore what it can do.
(18:21):
It's it's almost like a brandnew clay or something to work
with, which comes with its ownreally interesting ways to mold
and form it.
So I started working with fungium in my degree, uh, studying
the uh Bachelor of Fashion andTextiles.
(18:43):
Um I then sort of did somematerial development for a few
years.
Um, and I was doing some likeprivate tailoring tutoring, uh,
which is where I met my amazingbusiness partner, uh, Camden
Cook.
Um, and we decided that thefungal materials had so much
(19:05):
potential, and Australia wassuch a um like a central
location with um incredibleagriculture and beautiful
produce here that we reallywanted to do something to
celebrate that.
We wanted to create um a socialenterprise, something that um
(19:26):
generated impact like in ourcommunities, solved problems,
um, but also just prevented allthose amazing resources from
going to landfill.
Um so from having work worked inthe uh sort of biodesign natural
materials industry for a littlewhile now, um, I've then sort of
(19:50):
come back full circle all theway back to uh the place where I
started studying and come in toteach biodesign for the um
sustainable innovation umprogram.
SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Yeah, it's um it's been fun having the opportunity
to show.
Um, so you've come in a coupleof times with the students for
the last two years now, I thinkit's been.
It's been about four differentcohorts.
And it's always interestingseeing, I guess, how many
amazing questions and howcurious everyone is about, I
guess, this sort of space andwhat can be done.
(20:25):
Um it's uh yeah, it's excitingto see and to to know that there
are so many people comingthrough the ranks that are being
exposed to like a lot of themare traditional design, right?
But they're still being exposedto this fuzzy, quirky, strange,
you know, thing in the corner,which is biodesign.
Um and I look forward to seeingit sort of move from, you know,
(20:46):
the corner to center stage,which I feel like it's really
going to be doing um in the nextsort of little bit.
I'd I'd love to know um ifthere's anything new that's been
happening in the works for you.
So I know every time we talk,there's about 10 different
things because there is so muchthat fungi can do, right?
Like I know that you're workingon bioremediation to break down
(21:07):
cigarette butts using fungi,which I guess goes back to that
question I asked about can polybe broken down?
Because I assume there'sprobably a lot of strange like
polyesses and stuff like that incigarette butts and whatnot.
On top of that, I know that youmake mycelium-based paper as one
of your products.
You also have the packaging youwere referring to.
So you you have the polystyrenereplacement and the molding for
(21:31):
packaging.
Like what else?
Because I feel like there'sprobably another product line
somewhere that I haven't evenmentioned.
So many, so many products.
SPEAKER_02 (21:41):
Um, it's a wonderful problem to have fungi so
adaptable and um incredibly goodat what they do, and it is
really nice to see um so manyemerging designers um sort of
coming into contact with theseideas around biodesign.
It's a brand new emergingindustry, so there's uh a lot of
(22:03):
exciting developments as always.
I feel like um Mycelium in itsbasic form has had some really
nice opportunities to beexplored in interiors and
furniture pieces, um, and we wesee a fair bit of packaging with
(22:23):
it as well.
It they're all really niceapplications, and um, there's
been some incredibly surprisinglearnings um from working in
those sectors, namely it's uhdesigned to be a single-use
compostable material, but mostpeople choose to keep the
mycelium and reuse it forsomething else because they find
(22:46):
it so beautiful, which I I don'tknow what other pieces of
packaging you could possibly saythat about.
Um so that's been somethingthat's um uh incredibly
interesting, but the the thescope for it is truly limitless.
(23:08):
Um we're quite interested in itssculptural properties.
Um so we're um looking at new uhtechniques and and ways to work
with it as um craftsmen uh andartisans as well.
So it has it leans itself to umlike manufacturing for something
(23:33):
consistent like packaging, butit can also be an incredibly
expressive medium to work with,which is um really fascinating
for us to try and um workshopthat process.
Uh then there's always ummechanical property
improvements, so uh you know,increasing the resilience or
(23:55):
strength performance,waterproofing um, and and fire
properties.
Um and then we've got rangeslike um mycelium leathers, um,
and yeah, just just some uh veryinteresting projects coming
along with a few partners.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Oh, that's exciting to hear.
I um I had the I guess theprivilege of of getting to be a
part of um there was a designstudio last year.
I can't remember the the name ofit with K-5 furniture, I think
Guangzhou, and there was a fewother people there, and I was
one of the judges for it.
And just seeing the peoplecoming through, you know,
creating the lampshades, whichare again as you're saying, like
(24:35):
the design and the high design,I see as being a really nice
vehicle for getting these thingsout there.
Um, acoustic panelling, reallynice modular artworks as well,
where you could have likedifferent, almost not Lego, but
the equivalent of havingsomething like that.
So you could then interlocking.
Yeah, interlock and change andshape.
(24:56):
The one thing I'd be sofascinated by would would be to
know whether or not anyone'sbeen experimenting with additive
manufacturing with a mycelial,like like so let's say they're
using clay or something else, orum some waste stream products,
maybe like a timber or somethingthat has been reclaimed, and
then they're also mixing througha mycelium.
(25:16):
Like, has anyone done anythinglike Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:18):
We we've seen furniture pieces like that that
have been 3D printed as a pasteand then allowed to grow, for
example.
Um, yeah, it's really justopened up a whole new style of
manufacturing in a lot ofdifferent ways.
It's like discovering marble forthe first time again.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Which says does anyone even use real marble
these days?
I feel like that must be a dimea dozen trying to find like
things like that.
I feel like every I mean, I Ithe reason why I asked that or
say that is um we're building anew lab down uh uh in the
Furniture Business Park nearMonash Uni, and um we're we're
getting this nice uh bench top,but it's not marble, it's like
(26:03):
an engineered stone low silica,which I believe they just
essentially crush dust up andturn it into a thing.
So yeah, I mean, I guess I don'tknow why that's even relevant to
anything, but just when you saidthe marble thing, I'm like, I
don't even know if you likethat's the thing, right?
These these these things thatare non-renewable on human
timescales, we're running out ofthose resources, right?
(26:25):
Like we can't keep using themthe way we used to, which is why
these things are fascinatingbecause they can grow in what,
like two weeks?
SPEAKER_02 (26:32):
Uh a month.
The grow times four days.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
That's insane.
unknown (26:35):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:37):
And mycelium's lighter anyway.
So getting you Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
Have you done so?
I I've seen, I know that you hadmycelium bricks lying around,
but do you know anyone who'sdone any work with like mycelium
brick walls and whether or notthey can be structural or
whether they're purely aestheticat this stage?
Like, how how durable are wetalking about these sort of
materials?
Could they have a use in thebuilt building industry, I
(27:05):
guess?
SPEAKER_02 (27:06):
I think the um the current approach is mycelium's
incredibly good with compressivestrength, but it's um fairly
weak with torsion.
Yeah.
Um, but it's got thoseincredibly important insulation
properties.
So if you're looking at myceliumfor construction, you want to be
(27:27):
pairing it with complementarymaterials.
So you might have your loadbearing in a different material,
but your insulation propertiescoming in with the mycelium.
So this is where you'd becombining biocomposites.
Yes, right, exactly.
Or um, you know, engineering insupport structures.
SPEAKER_00 (27:46):
Right.
So I can imagine a world wherethere could be a mycelial
thermal and acoustic barrier ina wall, and then you have like a
uh like a hemp crete brick, andthen maybe on the other side you
have like a hemp board as well,or maybe like a scoby, like a
bacterial cellulose blended upand dried to use as something on
(28:09):
the back.
I can imagine seeing like astack like that of like all
these biomaterials that could gointo making like new walls and
things like that that could befabricated in a pretty short
amount of time.
unknown (28:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:20):
Add in some kelp and you've nearly got the whole
spread of material outcomes youcould need.
SPEAKER_00 (28:25):
That's it.
We've slowly been collecting umall of the different um folks
working on this space so that wecan be like, let's just put them
all together and see whathappens.
SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
And they do look beautiful together.
I think they're verycomplementary, like material
groups.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Are there any um design studios working with all
of those materials here inAustralia?
SPEAKER_02 (28:47):
I'm not aware of anything that's really
specializing um in in that area,but I do know that there's a lot
of active interests inincorporating these materials.
Um it's it's almost likeeveryone's been just dying to
(29:08):
get their hands on them,essentially, and and is really
looking forward to figuring outhow to include them in their
processes.
SPEAKER_00 (29:15):
Yeah, so on that, on that note, I I I 100% agree with
what you're saying.
But then the there's anotherpart of my brain which uh flicks
into like the cynical businessmind of being like, well, um,
will it be scalable?
Uh, how can we ensure that it'sa good drop-in?
Will it get to the same pricepoint?
(29:36):
You know, like all the classic,which you would get asked all
the time by anyone, um, sort ofasking these sort of things.
Like, and I imagine another bigone, you know, in addition to
just those properties, um, wouldbe like regulatory things,
right?
Like if something has to be umfire retardant or if it has to
meet a certain standard.
And and that standard is managedby a group of people that
(29:58):
probably also are the industry.
And then you're like, well, it'sprobably not going to get passed
based on that, unless you have alot of money to get it through a
different path.
Do you know what I mean?
I can imagine that there wouldbe potential systemic barriers
that are maybe going to begetting in the way of bringing
these products to market.
I'm sure you've maybe even dealtwith these yourself.
(30:19):
I would love to know what youmight think these barriers would
be, say for fungi and maybeother biomaterials, and how you
think they could be alleviated,whether that is from like
government intervention orsupport or you know, um
something like a collabs tryingto offer support or um just uh
it doesn't matter, I guess, how.
(30:40):
Like I'd be so curious to seewhat your thoughts are on that.
SPEAKER_02 (30:44):
That's a great question.
Um I think that the really themost fundamental step in that
process is having your minimumviable product, whatever that
is, so you can at least start.
Having full certification is uma real like down the really
(31:06):
sophisticated end of gettingsomething new to market.
You kind of need to be sure thatyou're on the right track first,
uh, which allows you to gain abit of traction, but that's not
to discount how challenging of aphase that is.
Um but one thing that's reallyhelpful to have before you have
(31:30):
your full certification, whichis a significant investment for
any business, um, is how do youconduct indication testing early
and and like have thataccessible so you can make some
decisions about whether you goforward or not.
SPEAKER_00 (31:49):
What is indication testing?
SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
So say you want to um understand whether your
product is home compostable.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Right.
And it might cost you 30k tohave 30k to figure out whether
or not it's home compostable.
Potentially.
Couldn't you just home compostit?
SPEAKER_02 (32:08):
This is this is the important part of um the the
phase before it's easy to justuh go get certified, for
example.
Right.
Is when you do have to just homecomp like you have to try things
out physically to give yourselfan indication of do you go for
the certification?
(32:29):
Um, but you have to do thatacross the board with everything
to do with your product.
Will people accept it at theprice point you want to offer
it?
Like, does it function?
How does it perform?
Um, you're gonna have to do allof that before you even think
about certification becausethose questions and answers may
change what you have in yourhands.
SPEAKER_00 (32:51):
Yeah, I can imagine it's kind of like a like every
different part of the problem isdynamic and can change based on
other inputs and outputs.
So you're dealing with likequite a complex system of trying
to get this thing from ideationto actualization.
And especially when it's a zeroto one, like these a lot of the
times these things don't existor there's no precedence for it.
(33:13):
So when you go to test it,they're like, I mean, you can
test it against uh brick, yeah,and you're like, well, it's not
a brick.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, we can test itagainst this, but it's it's it's
not it's its own thing, it's thebeginning of infinity.
You know, we're startingsomething new here.
Um, yeah, I can imagine it wouldbe challenging because you have
(33:34):
to make it analogous to currentthings that people know rather
than have it clearly carved outas its own defined area, which I
mean, this is what you see thishappen with um cultivated meat
for a prime example.
So we have members here workingon cultivated meat.
They like, is it agriculture?
Is it cell biology?
You know, it's deep tech, sure,but like where does this thing
(33:55):
fit?
SPEAKER_02 (33:55):
Can you call it meat?
But like that's what the enduser is like looking for in an
experience of something thatthey want to brown and 100%.
SPEAKER_00 (34:06):
You know, and it kind of is style.
Like I mean, it is agriculture.
We we're cultivating and growingfood, but it's just using a
high-tech process.
So it's same with the leathers.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (34:18):
What counts as a leather, what counts as a hide.
But I I think spaces likecollabs are so important for
that phase where you're justtrying to understand what you
have in your hands.
Um and like sometimes literallyimpact that it could have on the
world.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:34):
Yeah.
What is this?
Speaking of which, we um we needto, I still really keen to do a
try and do a little collab withyou guys, maybe some mycelium
paneling or or something fun inthe space, or just to showcase
some of your stuff.
Because it would I think, as yousaid, it's it's quite striking
and beautiful.
Um, so we'd love to showcasesome stuff in here.
SPEAKER_02 (34:53):
It's such a um incredible talking point.
So we do a few exhibitions andevent events because fungi just
create beautiful installationsthat um draw people in.
Um and yeah, I I think it'sreally uh lovely to see people
(35:14):
like gathering around fungalsculptures and materials.
And we often um have people bequite surprised by the textures
and the feel of the material,for example.
It's nice to have people upclose to it.
SPEAKER_00 (35:30):
So it's way more hands-on than like, I don't
know, traditional art.
You're like, yeah, come and playwith it.
SPEAKER_02 (35:35):
We encourage people to like touch the materials
because they are so surprised.
Um the the texture I'd sort ofdescribe as being somewhere
between cork and velvet or likea felt, like it's very soft, but
it's got like a it's just aparadox.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
But I love it.
Yeah, I know exactly what youmean, having having touched it
and handled it.
Um, it's so fascinating.
And what I what I love and whatI think is potentially an
enabling constraint andfascinating about these things
is they literally are designedfor decomposition, right?
So I know Andrew made a fungibrick a while ago um and was
displaying it at the Monash TechSchool, and then um they came
(36:15):
back after the after the theholiday break and um it was
hollow.
And this collection of ants oror some other organism had gone
up there and eaten all themycelium and just left the the
the biome, like the I guesslet's say the substrate.
Um, and I and just just knowingthat that is possible is is both
(36:36):
fascinating and beautifulbecause it means it's ticking
the box for all of the rightthings from nature's
perspective.
unknown (36:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:43):
But I can see how then someone will be like, well,
yeah, I'm not gonna build a wallout of that.
unknown (36:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
But I can still see it as being like, well, you can
still replace things or you canfind coatings and like nature
has ways to preserve and to coatand to make things less
attractive to organisms.
So it's not that it's um, as yousaid, it's just the beginning
and we're starting to figurethese things out.
And I would be curious to know,like, is there any um you
(37:09):
obviously don't have to tell meanything sensitive, but like,
have you figured out a treatmentthing for your paper or for the
fungi that allows it to havedifferent properties?
Like, do you use a beeswax?
Have you experimented withanything like that to come up
with new and novel, I guess,textures and ways of working
with it?
SPEAKER_02 (37:27):
Yeah, that's um a lot of what I do within the
organization.
The fun stuff.
The fun stuff.
Uh, but yeah, we we have optionsfor waterproofing, we can change
the surface texture, we canchange the color, um, we can
grow sort of interestingsculptural forms out of it.
(37:49):
Um we do a bit of uh surfacetreatments with a laser cutter
um or putting textures into themycelium.
Um it picks up all those surfacetreatments really well.
Um, but all those options uhopen up new applications for the
(38:11):
mycelium.
So waterproofing being asignificant one for extending
the lifespan and um makingsomething like interiors make
more sense for it.
Um, even in its raw form,though, we're finding the
materials um are quite solid andstable for several years.
(38:32):
So we're not finding thatthey're um, you know,
disintegrating um super easily.
It's more when you introducethose natural elements like um
hungry insects or um moisturecompost conditions, then you'll
have uh the material umbreakdown, but it's pretty
(38:52):
stable and inert dry.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
Where do you think the field of biodesign is going
to go in the next decade or so?
So, like what what do you see?
What are the glimmers of hope?
Like, obviously, we've beentalking about all this sort of
stuff.
What do you think needs tohappen to help get these things
into the mainstream and and makeit as uh make this preferable
(39:15):
future possible, I guess?
SPEAKER_02 (39:18):
Um I see some of the bottlenecks being solved by
having some circular economysystems in place.
It's very ad hoc and likeindividual organizations
happening, and there's a littlebit of focus on trying to get
(39:40):
things linked up.
Um, part of the challenge isthat we have very dispersed
waste systems.
No one knows how much of what isgoing where, um, but a
significant portion of it isgoing to the tip or being burnt.
Yeah.
(40:00):
Um, and that's just a valueopportunity for us there and
quite a significant like even ifyou're just focusing on the
financial side, that's a lot ofopportunity.
Um, but economically andsocially, there's a lot there as
well.
So I am seeing some reallyinteresting impact-based
(40:22):
business models backed by thesenatural material solutions.
Um, they're certainly becomingmore accessible and available to
um smaller organizations.
So the MOQs are coming downquite significantly.
SPEAKER_00 (40:42):
MOQs.
SPEAKER_02 (40:43):
So minimum orders, um volumes essentially, are
becoming um more accessible.
Of waste streams or of of uhnatural material like
biomaterial solutions for thatreplace existing materials that
are problematic.
(41:04):
So something to replace yourpolystyrene boxes or your bubble
wrap.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
And they're not going to ask you for five tons
of it next week.
Exactly.
Instead, they're like, let'sokay, I understand.
SPEAKER_02 (41:14):
Yep.
So that's sort of um becomingmore available, um, which I
think is really nice and andwill have a significant impact.
Um, and the materials arebecoming quite sophisticated and
refined in their applicationnow.
So they're moving out of thatspeculative phase into
(41:35):
commercial reality.
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
I love um, I love that you just called out one of
the latest initiatives thatwe're trying to work on, which
is great, um, is which we'relooking at collaborating with
Materium uh and they're workingwith Google org as well.
About like, well, you know, wecould hypothetically use an AI
to do industrial ecology atscale, which could link
everything together in aplatform which is free to use.
(42:00):
Like you could you could setthis up and and create that
value that you're speaking ofthrough allowing people to see
the and like see the flows ofresources because you've done a
systems map which allows you toidentify where all the different
things are.
And then what you can do is youcould have a fungi solutions
based in the wine region to beable to then capitalize on all
of this, you know, spent grapematerial to then create X.
(42:23):
You can have, oh, we've got akelp farm over here.
Let's do a bioprocessingfacility here to be able to turn
that into um plasticalternatives for packaging and
other things.
Like once you you can'tnecessarily I don't know if this
is probably someone else'squote, I'm silly, but you're not
necessarily going to be able tochange a system without knowing
what the system might look likeor how some of those patterns
(42:45):
and processes are flowing.
And through observing that, youcan then find appropriate
leverage points to kind of nudgeor intervene with the system to
make it more effective.
Like, even though they'recurrently focusing from a
reductionist perspective ofisolation and segregation,
really, when you take a biggerpicture view of it, it's all
(43:06):
interconnected and interlinkedand interrelated.
And that's the problem, is thatthere is a lack of the systemic
awareness of the problems.
And everyone's just doing what'sright for them, full well
knowing that it's not what'sright for humanity or the planet
as a whole, but it makes senseeconomically in the short term.
Um, you know, but it's startingto rethink in this sort of
living systems way and beinglike, no, we need to be trying
(43:29):
to take a like a widercircumference of care and a
wider circumference of trying tocomprehend the whole.
Um, and it's just excitingbecause you said that.
And I'm like, that is literallyjust a grant proposal that we
put in to try and collaboratearound because that does feel
like the low-hanging fruit atthe moment is helping people
collectively coordinate and comeinto a pattern of coherence so
(43:51):
that we can shift away from thiscurrent method of doing that is
degenerative and destructive,towards something that might be
leaning towards a moreregenerative materials economy.
So cool.
It's exciting to hear thatyou're thinking the same sort of
things are glimmering, whichwhich makes sense.
We know we're we're we'reswimming in the same river
system, um, you know, doing whatwe're doing, so it makes sense.
(44:14):
Um yeah, what are your thoughtson on that?
SPEAKER_02 (44:17):
Or we're really excited by the idea of
regenerative manufacturing.
So um our processes creatingsomething nourishing at the end.
So even our waste productenriches soil and and goes into
soil testing programs.
So I think there's so manyexciting um opportunities when
(44:40):
you're you're looking at yourorganizations this way to um see
good things happen out of it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:47):
Yeah, and again, it's bringing that um the lens
of like, let's say, biology orum ecology or what have you to
it, right?
Is this this regenerativeenterprise approach where you're
giving more than you take, um,where you're trying to look for
those ways in which you cancollaborate effectively with
other entities in the spacewhere you're because there's
collaborative advantage andcollective intelligence
(45:09):
advantages that you can get fromthat, and like diversity of
opinion and thought anddiversity of organizations.
So, way better than amonoculture, right?
A polyculture is going to be waymore biodiverse, more innovation
from a biological perspective.
So, like it's so easy.
I mean, I I say it's so easy,but it's maybe that's because I
have a biology background andecology background, and then
(45:32):
also study business so I can seehow these two can fit together,
which is maybe unconventional orI guess what we call business
unusual.
Um, but I do feel like that thatcollaboration and that
transdisciplinary approach isgoing to be essential for this
ecosystem to, I guess, come tolife.
And um, yeah, I guess on thatnote, I would just be super
(45:52):
curious from your perspective,how how dependent are you upon
collaboration and trying to workwith other people in the space
to bring your ideas to life?
SPEAKER_02 (46:01):
We're really excited by partnerships because it
introduces us to challenges andproblems that we won't have been
aware of.
Um, someone might come to us andsay, we've been looking for a
solution to this materialproblem or this packaging piece
or um this product for so long,and we haven't found anything
(46:23):
that fits.
Um, and we think that fungimight be a good outcome.
We get to work towards that andmake make a solution.
Um, so I really enjoy thepartnership collaborations where
you're solving uh somethingthat's really exciting.
Um, and I think when you're anorganization at a small scale
(46:46):
scale as well, it allows you totest and trial things out.
So our facility in Thornbury isvery much a pilot facility so
that we can do case studies andtry new waste sources and do all
this important RD that needs tohappen with fungi and Australian
waste.
SPEAKER_00 (47:06):
But it sounds like as well, like uh you're both an
RD and an innovation at the sametime.
And it's acknowledging that it'snot necessarily either or.
You can be doing fundamentalresearch as at the same time as
doing challenge-led innovation,which it's just it's great to
hear you saying that as well,because we we kind of feel very
similar in in the way in whichyou know it's uh challenge
(47:28):
challenge-led from industry orthese other places is probably
going to be a really viable wayto create biomaterial solutions
when you know there's someonewho's a problem holder and you
know that you have the potentialto be a problem solver, and you
know that they might have theresources, whether that's
financial, social, knowledge,whatever sort of uh resources
(47:50):
you might need to be able tobring that to fruition.
Um, I think that is arguably oneof the most effective ways for
you know deep tech organizationsor buyer-led organizations like
Fungi Solutions to try and bringideas to life.
Um, and it's also just like avery adaptive way of doing
business, which can behorrifying for those who are
(48:11):
used to more traditionalmethods.
But um, yeah, no, it's excitingto hear you say that because I
think we really resonate withthat as being a way in which we
try and operate as well.
It's like everything's apotential experiment.
It's creating safe to failenvironments to rapidly iterate
and prototype on these things,and that's where the knowledge
and the learning comes from.
It's no different to evolutionwhere you have like a whole um
(48:34):
species, and every differentorganism is uh in that species
is essentially a new inventionof that species as a whole, and
you're kind of rapidlyprototyping and seeing what
works, and then you know thebest things get passed on.
Um, and I feel like it's asimilar sort of approach when
you're trying to bring this newuh thing to life, I guess you
(48:54):
could say.
SPEAKER_02 (48:54):
Yeah, nature's very inspiring and we can learn a lot
there.
SPEAKER_00 (48:58):
Yeah, that's for sure.
Um speaking of learning a lot,what advice would you give young
scientists or I mean, just to beclear, you actually studied
fashion, not science.
SPEAKER_02 (49:12):
So maybe that's not even I don't know, I don't know
what the right question wouldbe, but like it's my my
encouragement would be that youdon't need to be a formally
trained scientist to uh enjoylearning, um, ask good
questions, and uh if you uh havethe capacity to be a little
creative about your experimentdesign, you can do a lot without
(49:36):
formal training.
Um so I um I think it can be anamazing resource to deepen your
your understanding in a field.
And in fact, I'm going back todo formal training because yeah,
I'm gonna start a master's thisyear.
SPEAKER_00 (49:53):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (49:53):
Um in fungal materials.
Um RMIT.
SPEAKER_00 (49:58):
You're kidding.
They have a you can do amaster's in fungal materials at
RMIT.
SPEAKER_02 (50:02):
I'm designing my own project, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (50:04):
That's uh that's so boss.
Just being like, yeah, I'm gonnamake my own.
Like I wanna do because that'swhat I struggled with trying to
do like further research wasgoing, I want to do this thing
that doesn't exist.
How do I I can't just do that?
SPEAKER_02 (50:18):
Why not?
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
You've just motivated me.
That's so exciting.
SPEAKER_02 (50:22):
That that would be my encouragement for people that
are excited by STEM is that umyou you can learn a lot off your
own steam.
Um I was self-taught with how tocultivate mushrooms, and it it's
important for me to acknowledgethe amazing community around
(50:43):
mycology that freely publishesresources.
I believe in like open sourcesharing of cultivation
experience.
So it's because there was thatum you know uh open and like
fostered community available inmycology, I was able to sort of
transfer some skills.
(51:04):
Um, but I think followed the theinterest first and foremost.
And um yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (51:10):
And that was um, there's a fun little loop back
here here and there andeverywhere, right?
So some of the hands-onexperience was through
bioinquisitive, that's right,the community science lab, and
then the fungi group, like Iknow my community was a part of
that as well.
So it's interesting how there'sall these different loops, and I
I'm so glad you said thatbecause I don't know if we've
(51:30):
told you about the new civicscience hub.
I know that you came along tothe first like bioq relaunch,
but yeah, we are looking atexploring this whole new um, I
guess, educational.
Like, we're even going to godown the roll, the direction of
becoming a registered trainingorganization to be able to offer
education in these new andemerging fields of like
(51:51):
circularity, biodesign, livingsystems thinking, ecological
design, synthetic biology, allof this stuff that is incredibly
meaningful and could potentiallyhelp us move the needle, but uh
might not necessarily always beaccessible until like your PhD,
you know, where it's like, well,actually, the skills that you
want to do are pretty simple,like it's not hard.
(52:11):
It's like cooking or following apretty simple recipe book.
Like it's none of the science isactually hard.
It's just uh, and I don't wantto that might sound mean or like
I'm trying to, you know, uh, Ican see how that could be
interpreted the wrong way.
But uh realistically, if youwant to learn a specific skill
set for a certain task or youwant to learn about these
things, you can do thatself-taught research and then
(52:34):
come into a place and learn,okay, here's how I cultivate
mushrooms, or if I was gonna dothis, I could do, you know, this
pathway and and in like six to12 weeks be at a like a master's
grade level of competencybecause you've just spent way
more time in the lab rather thanin the theoretical.
SPEAKER_02 (52:51):
Yeah, I I would never want to see someone that's
excited by nature or orbiomaterials or anything like
that not get involved becausethey felt like they didn't have
the skills.
And I think that's why umorganizations looking at citizen
science um were so amazing, likemy community, so that people
(53:14):
could have support from peoplethat had um their scientific
training and paths along thatexperience.
Um you can contribute to likeconservation and um, you know,
DNA collection and that sort ofthing, all really important
projects.
Someone's been trained in thescientific method to do all the
(53:35):
data collection, but we stillneed people with hands-on, um,
we still need um people uhobserving field sites and
collecting samples.
So there's many different waysto be involved in STEM, uh,
which I think is amazing.
And I'm very excited to see thatmore accessible.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Um yeah, and even from the design perspective,
right?
Like I don't know, I guess maybebecause I try and see things
from not necessarily a singledisciplinary perspective, but to
me, like science, design, Imean, science and design are
similar sort of things, right?
But science being a very narrowsubset of design in which you're
designing, as you said,protocols and procedures to try
(54:15):
and do X based off a certainphilosophy.
Philosophy underpins design andscience, and then design being a
certain way of looking at theworld and how do we bring um
artifacts into reality, whetherthey're physical or digital
artifacts?
So I yeah, see it all asinterrelated.
And but I guess as well fromthat side of things, I I'd be
curious to know what yourthoughts are in regards to
(54:38):
sharing a sentiment todesigners.
Is it the same sort of thing?
Like just because you don't havethe scientific background
doesn't mean you shouldn't becurious and lean into exploring
with these things.
Like, absolutely.
Is there any um any like thingsthat people should know before
looking to experiment withbiomaterials that make it
different to say other materialforms?
SPEAKER_01 (54:59):
That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02 (55:01):
Um I I think it's the same in the sense that if
you're wanting to get involvedin design, it's really about
asking good questions and andtrying things out as well.
Um, there's a little less focuson the rigor side of things
that's really important in STEMfor like measure and measuring
(55:24):
and analysis.
In terms of um working withbiomaterials, my only caution
for someone new is that in thefirst couple of years of
learning how to cultivate, Igrew so much mold.
I grew so much mold.
So please just expect pleasejust expect to um have you know
(55:48):
challenges learning how to docultivation and like learning
how to collaborate with livingorganisms.
SPEAKER_00 (55:54):
Learning aseptic techniques.
SPEAKER_02 (55:56):
Yeah, they they're they're alive.
Um, you know, I had a reallyamazing um sort of chat with
Alia Parker on a panel once, whosaid um that she had to uh be
intentional about what she wasfeeding her fungi because they
(56:17):
would get bored of the same foodsource in the lab and they would
just die of boredom.
So, like, you know, you you'reworking with something alive.
SPEAKER_00 (56:26):
That is, that is wild.
SPEAKER_02 (56:28):
Yeah, they like a diverse diet just like we do.
SPEAKER_00 (56:31):
And which makes total sense.
Um makes to question humans howwe manage to survive off like a
diet of chips and other things.
SPEAKER_03 (56:40):
But I I that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (56:43):
No, I just now that's got me wanting to ask you
some more spicy or strangequestions.
Do you think, like, when youlook at working with these
living systems, do you think thedifferent mushrooms have
different personalities?
SPEAKER_02 (56:54):
They certainly have different growth habits, that's
for sure.
Like yeah, in some ways, they'revery tenacious and interesting.
Um, I think a lot of people arestruck by how um sort of
surprising they are.
They sort of emerge reallysuddenly and they're very
(57:15):
mysterious, and usually a lot oftheir processes are happening
underground and they're hidden.
Um but even in the conditionsthat we're cultivating them,
where we can see them, we cansee how they're growing, um,
they still surprise us all thetime by chewing through
materials we didn't expect themto, or or fruiting randomly, or
(57:36):
just producing the mostbeautiful forms we've ever seen,
just just naturally withouttrying too hard.
So it's pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_00 (57:45):
So, what would you say has been your favorite
surprise?
You've come in and been like,that is I was not expecting
that.
SPEAKER_02 (57:53):
Yeah, it's usually something like we'll be growing
a piece and it might just getlike put under a table or
something, and you'll be goingand looking for something else,
and you'll pull out this blockand it's got dinner plate-sized
mushrooms there, and you've justscored dinner for the whole team
because we had unexpectedharvest.
(58:14):
Like they they just dosurprising things all on their
own.
SPEAKER_00 (58:19):
So, to clarify, in the process of turning the
living organism into a finalproduct, usually there is a
process of let's saydevitalization, or is that not
always the case?
SPEAKER_02 (58:39):
It's not always the case.
Like you can simply air drythem, they're gonna be sort of
um able to be like regrown bybeing rehydrated at that point.
Um, most of the materials areheat treated to make them inert
and non-living, right?
(59:00):
So um that just ensures thatyou've just got a base material
that's not going to be.
SPEAKER_00 (59:06):
Your fungi's not gonna eat into your speaker,
which you're transporting orstoring.
SPEAKER_02 (59:10):
Yeah, it just creates a consistent um end
product.
So most of the materials areheat treated in that way.
Um, some pieces we don't um sortof uh stop the fungi growing
because we want to grow morelater in the process.
Just depends what outcome youwant.
SPEAKER_00 (59:30):
So when you say later later in the process, I'd
be curious to know what youwould be making that you would
want that to fruit.
Or is it like you might get itto fruit and then you heat treat
it again?
Like, are you like obviously themycelium is fascinating, but
I've seen like a lot of artpieces where they'll have
fruiting bodies as well becausethat's obviously quite
(59:51):
provocative, or it's curious.
Like, so would you then like alot of the time are they then
heat treated to maintain thatfor?
longer or you can do that.
SPEAKER_03 (01:00:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:03):
Interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:04):
But yeah, it's just all about fine-tuning those
parts of the cultivation processto get the outcome that you
want.
So there's like the standardmycelium growth and then you
have the the beautiful skin thatyou're able to produce on the
outside that produces adifferent texture.
And you've got the fruiting umcomponent of it as well.
(01:00:25):
So you can change theenvironmental conditions in that
way.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:30):
Right.
So I guess riffing off that toprovide an analogy so there's
almost like a uh the differentlayers or different types of
leather you can kind of havethat with the fungi if if I'm
going to interpret what you'vesaid.
So there's like a skin layer andthen maybe if you shave that off
you've got a Nubuck and then youcan you potentially work with
(01:00:50):
just that skin layer and thenthat is like a full grain
leather.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:55):
Yeah.
So the mycelium has differentproperties at different parts of
the material.
What's the most wild myceliumcomposite or just mycelium-based
product that you've seenrecently can be one of your
products if you really want Idon't really mind um I've I've
(01:01:17):
been um really interested in theidea of Australian um bushfire
habitats for wildlife withmycelium taking advantage of the
fire resistant properties theability to create you know small
molded forms I think it couldhave an incredible like um
(01:01:42):
environmental and ecosystemimpact.
So that's an application that Ithink would be really exciting
and specific to where we are andand the types of um challenges
that we have here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:55):
That's fascinating because I was that was actually
going to be another question Ihaven't even got around to
asking for there's like ahundred more but I'm also wary
of time.
But I'd I would be so curious toknow like on that note do you do
you have like if you're going toship something overseas and
you're going to use fungalpackaging do you need to ensure
that it's like an oystermushroom which everyone has
(01:02:16):
everywhere so they're not goingto worry about biocontamination
or like because I can imagine Ican see that you might have to
cultivate and use Australianspecies in your products locally
because we might have strict uhimport regulations or
biosecurity measures like Iassume that this is one of the
first things you had to thinkabout with your packaging
because you've done packagingfor wine right yeah so the heat
(01:02:39):
treatment process is whathandles that so it just makes it
a an a natural inert non-livingcan't regrow material.
Does that kill spores?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02:48):
Yeah okay that that was just that that's it that's
all I've got on that but um yeahon that note though with the the
fire resistance with Australianfungi that is something that
I've always thought isfascinating because we do come
from a country where you havequite a lot of this happening
and I would I wonder like whatspecies are the most uh
(01:03:13):
resilient in that way because Iknow we have Ganoderma which um
grow a lot on eucalypts and Iknow that they were actually
used as a means of transportingfire they would actually use
them as a as an ember becausethey would burn for ages because
they had quite a dense profilebut what what fungi locally do
you think is a really excitingsort of prospect from this uh
(01:03:36):
flame resistant sort of side ofthings honestly we're just at
the very beginning ofunderstanding Australian fungi
ecology in general let are letalone the potential applications
that are sort of available to uswith the species that we have
here.
So that is um a a reallyexciting challenge but one
(01:04:00):
that's going to take many ummycology researchers and and um
ecologists and that sort ofthing.
Our Australian Ganoderm is avery interesting and impressive
species because they haveincredibly dense leathery
mycelium so they're incrediblebut so much opportunity um
(01:04:26):
that's yet untapped in inAustralian fungal um species.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:33):
So on on the concept of untapped potential do you do
you think that there's a role toplay with um things like AI and
machine learning when it comesto biomaterials?
Like I know for example I'm sureyou're familiar with Materium
they're looking at doing an AIsort of platform for
biomaterials and regenerativedesign.
(01:04:55):
Do you think that things likethis could play a really big
role in helping people orhelping at least raise awareness
about these sort of materialsand do you think that's
something that you would look atin integrating or incorporating
into your processes or RD sortof approach?
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:11):
That's a really good question.
Yeah I I think it will be areally important part of the
equation particularly whenyou're looking at um like scale
and volume and creating largerimpacts having modeling systems
just helps us to work withbigger data sets and that sort
(01:05:33):
of thing that are just reallyhard to grapple with as a single
person.
There's also all sorts ofopportunities in terms of like
automating your flows and andthat sort of thing.
We haven't sort of put any plansin place to have AI integration
(01:05:56):
just yet.
Still very much producingmaterials by hand.
But I could see this being areally important part of the
process when it comes to thingslike contamination and how you
manage those sorts of challengesin a scaled up lab.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06:13):
And even I can imagine so I've I've done a lot
of envisioning on this stuffbecause I find it so fascinating
is that I can imagine even fromlike a like a lab ops or
manufacturing ops side of thingslike having having a having
something that can automaticallymonitor and and manage and
maintain humidity temperatureall of these sorts of things
(01:06:34):
having like a like a like a labmanagement system with an AI
interface where you could dothese natural language commands
or conversations it's just supercool.
I really want to designsomething like that.
I think it would be anincredibly fun way to I guess
bring this sort of stuff to lifeand to scale in a way that might
not mean that you don't have tohave heaps of people doing
(01:06:55):
boring and monotonous things andpeople can be spending more time
playing and doing the RD that'sthe real fun things that humans
are really good at um but yeah Idon't know I just think there's
so much space so much potentialin that space I agree.
Yeah what um oh what do youthink we should sort of leave
folks with is there any otherthoughts on your mind that are
(01:07:18):
rattling around or any updates?
Like is there anything newthat's happening at Fungi
Solutions up like from anupcoming perspective?
Any fun things from uh landingfunding or collaborations?
What's going on?
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:31):
Yeah we've just started um having some mycelium
leather available fordistribution so we're getting in
contact with everyone to letthem know that we have our hands
on the goods and we're uh reallyexcited about the RD pathway uh
for the leather-based materials.
(01:07:54):
Um there's a lot of uh potentialin that sector and um having a
more sustainable option for thattype of material is going to be
amazing.
So we're very excited to um havethe leather coming along and
also plans for making itsomething really um high end and
(01:08:18):
special in the future.
So that's underway where umwe've we've got our safe round
of investment happening at themoment.
So we've had some really amazinglocal supporters that are
excited to see uh the myceliumsolutions happening in Australia
and we're preparing for scale upand a um more sophisticated
(01:08:42):
investment strategy so it'sunderway um so if there are
people in the network that umare really excited by climate
solutions like that I'drecommend getting in touch it's
the sweet spot I wish I wish Icould get in touch with with
bountiful amounts of money tosupport you I don't I don't have
any but I wish I could but we'vewe've always been so supportive
(01:09:06):
um collaboratively between ourorganizations so it's been
wonderful.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:10):
No that's that's it.
Well thanks so much for carvingout some time of your Friday
afternoon for a chat.
Yeah no it's been really lovelyand I look forward to seeing
what continues to emerge fromthe collaborative space between
and yeah hopefully see you againon here sometime soon.
Perfect thanks all right thanksso much for tuning in once again
(01:09:34):
that was uh a delightfulconversation with Amanda.
Um yeah gonna keep this endreally short and pretty much
just stop talking thanks so muchand enjoy the rest of your day
night wherever you are aroundthe world
Hello and welcome to The Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast fromColabs, a transdisciplinary
innovation hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, Australia.
I'm your co-host, Sam Wise, andalongside my co-founder Andrew
Gray, we'll delve deep into theintersection of biology,
technology, and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovationinformed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
(01:00):
And then uh there was also someaudio processing issues I had
with the mics, which just madeit hard to edit, but I've
finally done it.
I've I've made it work.
So yeah, hopefully you enjoyedthis conversation with Amanda
from Fungi Solutions.
Um yeah, I thought it was areally exciting conversation,
and it's just so cool to see somany world-leading people doing
(01:24):
amazing things in biomaterialsand biodesign here in Australia.
Um yeah, so I highly recommendchecking out Fungi Solutions,
supporting them if you can.
Uh really cool concept.
It's just so great to see peoplefinding ways to replace
petrochemical plastics withbio-based alternatives that
could actually work at scale.
(01:45):
Uh, and this is one of them.
So, this is going to be one ofthe first in a series of, I
guess, um uh podcasts where westart to focus more on
biomaterials.
Um, it's just personally I findthem incredibly interesting, and
I also think it's a massivelever for systems change, so
from petrochemical plastics totoxic chemicals like PFAS and
(02:07):
other DWRs, which areessentially making us sterile
and slowly killing us and all ofthe rest of the living world.
We kind of need to betransitioning away from that.
Use it so exploring ways inwhich we can do biodesign using
green chemistry um basedprinciples and all of these
other sorts of things.
So, yeah, it's really excitingto see that more of this sort of
(02:29):
stuff is popping up, and wereally want to take an active
role at co-labs in supportingthat, whether that's through the
co-creation of a regenerativedesign studio, um, where we
might help with prototyping someideas and then exploring ways to
bring them, bring them to lifein a commercial context, um, or
whether it's helping set up anew community lab similar to
(02:52):
BioAquisitive to be able to makespace for biodesigners because
it's a bit of a different kindof demand from a lab space
perspective compared to likeyour PC2 lab space.
So, yeah, if anything like thatsounds interesting, definitely
get in contact with us becausewe're looking to co-create and
co-design something like thatwith others.
And we would love to hear fromyou.
And I guess we're bettertogether.
(03:13):
So let's collaborate, cooperate,and coordinate to make cool
things happen here on thebiomaterial front in Australia.
Anyway, I'll shut up now andI'll let the conversation roll.
And I yeah, look forward tohearing what you think.
Amanda, thanks so much forcoming onto the podcast today.
Um, it's been a long timecoming.
I feel like you've beensuccessfully avoiding coming in
(03:37):
for a chat for a while.
So I appreciate you letting usum letting us nab you down for a
moment to talk about all theawesome things that you do.
SPEAKER_02 (03:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Yeah, no worries.
So just um, I guess as a bit ofa context setter um for this.
So I thought it could be reallyinteresting to hear from your
perspective.
I guess, what is biodesign?
Like, what is that conceptually?
And what is the notion behinddesigning with living systems?
And why is that, I guess,appealing to you?
SPEAKER_02 (04:07):
That's a great question.
I think at its core, uh,biodesign is about designing
with life, with livingorganisms, um, and working with
natural systems.
Um, it's important that we uhview our uh collaborators or the
(04:32):
organisms that we work with asan active part of the process,
not just something that wemanufacture and extract from.
Um, that comes with its ownkinds of um uh focus and
attention to detail in terms ofcreating um flourishing,
(04:53):
thriving, and and nourishingsort of um materials, products,
um, but also the the systemsthat sit around those design
ideas as well.
So it's really um rethinkingthings um and looking at how we
can um fabricate things withlife um as a collaboration.
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
So on that note of fabricating with life, what is
biofabrication?
What like how would you explainthat to um someone who might not
be familiar with the field?
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
Yeah, I I think we can think about it similar to
the ways that we already makethings.
You need a scaffold um that uhcreates your material um or
whatever you're trying toproduce, but rather than
producing this um synthetically,we're asking our uh living
(05:57):
organisms to produce thisscaffold for us.
Um so our job as collaboratorsthere is to provide the right
environment, things like theright food source, um, control
waste and contamination to umencourage the life forms to
produce the materials that wewant.
SPEAKER_00 (06:16):
It sounds a lot like the concept of gardening.
Yes.
Um, which I mean, as abiologist, I see, you know,
microbiology and stuff in thelab as kind of like gardening on
a micro scale.
But it sounds like when you'relooking at doing this work with
biofabrication, um, and I lovethat you're using this word
collaboration, because yeah, youcan't necessarily force a plant
to grow.
You can't force a fungi to grow,but you can create the enabling
(06:40):
conditions.
unknown (06:40):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (06:41):
And it's that mindset shift from like command,
control, designing withprecision to I guess you kind of
have to allow the uncertaintyand the messiness of life and
knowing that life will find away, maybe the right way, maybe
a better way than you could haveeven thought before you um
decided to collaborate with thisliving system, which I think is
(07:02):
super exciting.
So I guess on that note, whatinspired you to focus on
biomaterials?
What was it that you kind of sawand then were like, yep, that to
me is super appealing, and Iwant to pursue that as a career
or even just an interest?
SPEAKER_02 (07:22):
Um I was very interested in the idea of
recycling from uh a very youngage, and I enjoyed the process
of reusing things and givingthem new life.
So I felt like I was alwaysquite attuned to uh looking at
(07:43):
the potential um in somethingand seeing like the value of the
resources there.
Um, as I sort of got into um myfield of study, which was
fashion design, um, I beganlooking for ways to recycle
waste textiles.
Um textiles is when you shredthem to cut a garment, those cut
(08:10):
fibers are no longer reallyusable.
Um so a significant portion ofwaste comes from just the
manufacturing process.
Um it's about 10 to 15 percentof the total fibre harvest.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So this is the off-cuts, right?
SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
Yeah, the off-cuts.
Um, so in my mind, that's areally significant volume of
resources that we're currentlynot tapping into.
Um I knew that it would bepossible to cultivate fungi on
scrap textiles.
Um, you know, they'll they'llgrow on plant-based waste
(08:54):
resources.
Um, and I thought that was suchan exciting opportunity to bond
um those materials intosomething new.
It turns out fungi are reallyfascinating as a material in a
whole um range of differentways.
Uh, so they they just reallytook my interest, and and
(09:16):
there's lots of scope forresearch and development in the
biomaterials field, inparticular with with fungi, but
uh across natural materials as awhole as well.
SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
Yeah, there is there's so much to learn from
the way nature designs and makesmaterials, and I think it's
incredibly exciting that we'rekind of almost going through a
renaissance now where it's like,well, yeah, it already is there
from the three and a halfbillion years or 3.8 billion
years of of evolution.
We just need to be able to lookand to see it uh and find ways
(09:48):
to relate with it moreeffectively.
Um so I guess that's reallyexciting to hear, I guess, your
backstory.
I I'm super curious.
So you were you just said thenorganic materials and binding
them.
So it wouldn't work with like acotton poly blend.
Or did you did you do any likere like was it only organic
materials that you werefascinated by?
(10:08):
Because I imagine like a lot ofclothes is poly, right?
SPEAKER_02 (10:11):
Yeah, a lot of clothes are blended fibers these
days.
There's some really interestingresearch around fungi and
synthetic materials as well.
So it's a whole branch of theresearch into what uh mushrooms
can do, but essentially theyhave incredibly adaptive
digestive systems.
So you can target and train themon different waste resources.
(10:35):
Um, something like a syntheticfiber is going to be a little
more challenging for them to tryand tackle for nutrients, but
they're very tenacious.
They'll they'll certainly giveit a go.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
Right.
And I guess so.
The premise behind why they'renot as good at breaking these
non-natural fibers down isbecause they haven't necessarily
come up against them in naturebefore.
So they haven't developed thecapacity to break them down.
Or I'm I'm super curious becauseI I know a little bit about
fungi.
I don't know much.
(11:06):
I know that unlike us, theydigest on the outside.
So they extreme enzymes into umthe environment around them and
use that to digest and breakdown things and then kind of
grab what they would like.
unknown (11:19):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
So, yeah, how how does all of that sort of work?
SPEAKER_02 (11:24):
Yeah, so the the underlying mechanism is that
digestive uh enzymes thatthey're excreting externally,
it's breaking apart thehydrocarbon bonds of uh what
they're digesting.
So that's the mechanism behindwhich we can remediate toxic
(11:44):
materials.
They're breaking apart thosebonds and um turning them into
simpler um forms.
Um they do the same thing withum some plastics.
Plastics just might need thingslike pre-treatment to be broken
down, like UV treatment, forexample, to make it more
(12:04):
accessible for them to get intothe material and digest it.
So it's a um uh plasticdecomposition with fungi um is
has some promising earlyresearch, but is not yet fully
out of the speculative stage.
Whereas recycling um organicmaterials, we know that the
(12:28):
fungi are going to eat those.
So it was a really accessibleplace to start in terms of uh
volume of impact that could becreated and recycling.
Um, but there's some reallyinteresting opportunities coming
along and some fascinatingresearch projects being
conducted around the world.
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
It sounds fascinating.
I can imagine or I could see aworld where there is um some
form of mechanical process or umor even like a just saying, like
a light-based process fortreatment, which then you can
collaborate with fungi whereyou're saying, hey, let us break
it down to make it a little bitmore digestible for you, and
then they can come in and sortof do that.
I can even see maybe like asynthetic biology sort of
(13:09):
situation or a almost like a howdo you create an ecosystem
around this?
Like, let's get some bacteriawith pet A's and Med A's, let's
put that into a slurry, and thenthe fungi can come along and
break down.
Like, do you know anyone who'staking that approach with
recycling where they go, hangon, it's never going to just be
fungi.
It's never gonna be justbacteria.
It's gonna be a symbiotic colonyof multiple different living
(13:33):
systems that create differentfood and waste streams between
them.
I don't know anyone necessarilydoing that, but I guess we're
still in the such early stagesof figuring out what each
individual can do that maybe wehaven't thought about how they
might work as a collective.
SPEAKER_02 (13:47):
Yeah, it's not quite that sophisticated yet, but it's
one of those areas where wecould be looking to nature for
how problems are already solvedto address some of the things
that we're struggling withcollectively.
SPEAKER_00 (14:03):
Yeah, we and there's no shortage of those problems,
that's for sure.
I um yeah, I do think that likeliving systems thinking and bio
biodesign and biofabricationmight hold many of the solutions
to quite a few of the problemsthat we have, at least in the in
the built or the materialenvironment side of things.
Um, but even like I mean, a lotof the problems we face
(14:26):
collectively are, well, exactlythat actually, they're
collective coordination failuresof humans who don't understand
long-term consequences.
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Um one thing that always strikes me is there's no
such thing as waste in nature.
Yeah.
What classic biomimicryprinciple.
Why do we have that as part ofour systems?
Um, we could go back to thedrawing board on a few of these
things and and redesign somemore effective and efficient
processes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:55):
So on that night, uh on that note rather, um,
designing for decomposition, allof this sort of stuff, is that
stuff so you maybe we should.
I'm sorry, this is verynon-linear.
So let's maybe we should twistit back a little bit um before I
start asking about that.
So you are the one of theco-founders and head of research
(15:17):
at Fungi Solutions.
Uh, on top of that, you're alsoa lecturer in sustainable
innovation um and fashion atRMIT, which you also studied
that course, which you're nowcoming back to teach, I assume.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Yeah, full circle.
I like that.
Even circular in your teachingmethods.
Um, so yeah, maybe tell us alittle bit about that journey.
We kind of got that you wereinterested in um, I guess,
biodesign and you were studyingthis as part of your research.
How can we look at fusing theseoffcuts together to um create
fashion items?
I believe you even had a runway,maybe at some point.
SPEAKER_02 (15:55):
I had a small grad collection.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Yeah, that counts.
That counts.
I like the like the the humblebrack or woods.
Like we won't take it down for amoment in grad collection, but
um, yeah, I remember that.
That was super cool.
Um, but yeah, like talk talk usthrough how this idea for fungi
solutions came about.
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
Sure.
Um, so the interest, as wechatted about, started as a way
to utilize textile waste andtextile scraps.
Um, fungi are incredibledigesters of organic material
and also um have this veryinteresting property of being
(16:33):
like natural glue.
They fuse things together, theywant to be cohesive, they want
to join.
Um, so it introduced some reallyinteresting material properties.
And myceliums had, you know,some time now to sort of um have
(16:53):
a lot of people experimentingwith it.
Um, this would have come in theearly days from uh culinary
mushroom cultivation at the endof that process when you grow
your mushrooms, you're left withthe block of roots, which is the
mycelium.
Um, and this is what we make ourbiomaterials out of.
(17:17):
Um, mycelium left over from thatprocess has traditionally been
composted or made into mulch.
It's incredibly aerating and itimproves water retention and
soil health.
So it's amazing for that.
But it has so much life andpotential just in that middle
(17:37):
part of the process because itis a uh near-perfect natural
replacement for polystyrene andanywhere you'd use molded
plastics.
So it has these incredibleproperties of being lightweight,
super durable, very strong.
(17:59):
Um, it's acoustically andthermally insulating, as well as
fire retardant, can be grown onwaste and sequesters carbon.
So we're we're looking at somereally amazing credentials as a
material, um, but also a hugeamount of scope to work with it
and uh explore what it can do.
(18:21):
It's it's almost like a brandnew clay or something to work
with, which comes with its ownreally interesting ways to mold
and form it.
So I started working with fungium in my degree, uh, studying
the uh Bachelor of Fashion andTextiles.
(18:43):
Um I then sort of did somematerial development for a few
years.
Um, and I was doing some likeprivate tailoring tutoring, uh,
which is where I met my amazingbusiness partner, uh, Camden
Cook.
Um, and we decided that thefungal materials had so much
(19:05):
potential, and Australia wassuch a um like a central
location with um incredibleagriculture and beautiful
produce here that we reallywanted to do something to
celebrate that.
We wanted to create um a socialenterprise, something that um
(19:26):
generated impact like in ourcommunities, solved problems,
um, but also just prevented allthose amazing resources from
going to landfill.
Um so from having work worked inthe uh sort of biodesign natural
materials industry for a littlewhile now, um, I've then sort of
(19:50):
come back full circle all theway back to uh the place where I
started studying and come in toteach biodesign for the um
sustainable innovation umprogram.
SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Yeah, it's um it's been fun having the opportunity
to show.
Um, so you've come in a coupleof times with the students for
the last two years now, I thinkit's been.
It's been about four differentcohorts.
And it's always interestingseeing, I guess, how many
amazing questions and howcurious everyone is about, I
guess, this sort of space andwhat can be done.
(20:25):
Um it's uh yeah, it's excitingto see and to to know that there
are so many people comingthrough the ranks that are being
exposed to like a lot of themare traditional design, right?
But they're still being exposedto this fuzzy, quirky, strange,
you know, thing in the corner,which is biodesign.
Um and I look forward to seeingit sort of move from, you know,
(20:46):
the corner to center stage,which I feel like it's really
going to be doing um in the nextsort of little bit.
I'd I'd love to know um ifthere's anything new that's been
happening in the works for you.
So I know every time we talk,there's about 10 different
things because there is so muchthat fungi can do, right?
Like I know that you're workingon bioremediation to break down
(21:07):
cigarette butts using fungi,which I guess goes back to that
question I asked about can polybe broken down?
Because I assume there'sprobably a lot of strange like
polyesses and stuff like that incigarette butts and whatnot.
On top of that, I know that youmake mycelium-based paper as one
of your products.
You also have the packaging youwere referring to.
So you you have the polystyrenereplacement and the molding for
(21:31):
packaging.
Like what else?
Because I feel like there'sprobably another product line
somewhere that I haven't evenmentioned.
So many, so many products.
SPEAKER_02 (21:41):
Um, it's a wonderful problem to have fungi so
adaptable and um incredibly goodat what they do, and it is
really nice to see um so manyemerging designers um sort of
coming into contact with theseideas around biodesign.
It's a brand new emergingindustry, so there's uh a lot of
(22:03):
exciting developments as always.
I feel like um Mycelium in itsbasic form has had some really
nice opportunities to beexplored in interiors and
furniture pieces, um, and we wesee a fair bit of packaging with
(22:23):
it as well.
It they're all really niceapplications, and um, there's
been some incredibly surprisinglearnings um from working in
those sectors, namely it's uhdesigned to be a single-use
compostable material, but mostpeople choose to keep the
mycelium and reuse it forsomething else because they find
(22:46):
it so beautiful, which I I don'tknow what other pieces of
packaging you could possibly saythat about.
Um so that's been somethingthat's um uh incredibly
interesting, but the the thescope for it is truly limitless.
(23:08):
Um we're quite interested in itssculptural properties.
Um so we're um looking at new uhtechniques and and ways to work
with it as um craftsmen uh andartisans as well.
So it has it leans itself to umlike manufacturing for something
(23:33):
consistent like packaging, butit can also be an incredibly
expressive medium to work with,which is um really fascinating
for us to try and um workshopthat process.
Uh then there's always ummechanical property
improvements, so uh you know,increasing the resilience or
(23:55):
strength performance,waterproofing um, and and fire
properties.
Um and then we've got rangeslike um mycelium leathers, um,
and yeah, just just some uh veryinteresting projects coming
along with a few partners.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Oh, that's exciting to hear.
I um I had the I guess theprivilege of of getting to be a
part of um there was a designstudio last year.
I can't remember the the name ofit with K-5 furniture, I think
Guangzhou, and there was a fewother people there, and I was
one of the judges for it.
And just seeing the peoplecoming through, you know,
creating the lampshades, whichare again as you're saying, like
(24:35):
the design and the high design,I see as being a really nice
vehicle for getting these thingsout there.
Um, acoustic panelling, reallynice modular artworks as well,
where you could have likedifferent, almost not Lego, but
the equivalent of havingsomething like that.
So you could then interlocking.
Yeah, interlock and change andshape.
(24:56):
The one thing I'd be sofascinated by would would be to
know whether or not anyone'sbeen experimenting with additive
manufacturing with a mycelial,like like so let's say they're
using clay or something else, orum some waste stream products,
maybe like a timber or somethingthat has been reclaimed, and
then they're also mixing througha mycelium.
(25:16):
Like, has anyone done anythinglike Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:18):
We we've seen furniture pieces like that that
have been 3D printed as a pasteand then allowed to grow, for
example.
Um, yeah, it's really justopened up a whole new style of
manufacturing in a lot ofdifferent ways.
It's like discovering marble forthe first time again.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Which says does anyone even use real marble
these days?
I feel like that must be a dimea dozen trying to find like
things like that.
I feel like every I mean, I Ithe reason why I asked that or
say that is um we're building anew lab down uh uh in the
Furniture Business Park nearMonash Uni, and um we're we're
getting this nice uh bench top,but it's not marble, it's like
(26:03):
an engineered stone low silica,which I believe they just
essentially crush dust up andturn it into a thing.
So yeah, I mean, I guess I don'tknow why that's even relevant to
anything, but just when you saidthe marble thing, I'm like, I
don't even know if you likethat's the thing, right?
These these these things thatare non-renewable on human
timescales, we're running out ofthose resources, right?
(26:25):
Like we can't keep using themthe way we used to, which is why
these things are fascinatingbecause they can grow in what,
like two weeks?
SPEAKER_02 (26:32):
Uh a month.
The grow times four days.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
That's insane.
unknown (26:35):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:37):
And mycelium's lighter anyway.
So getting you Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
Have you done so?
I I've seen, I know that you hadmycelium bricks lying around,
but do you know anyone who'sdone any work with like mycelium
brick walls and whether or notthey can be structural or
whether they're purely aestheticat this stage?
Like, how how durable are wetalking about these sort of
materials?
Could they have a use in thebuilt building industry, I
(27:05):
guess?
SPEAKER_02 (27:06):
I think the um the current approach is mycelium's
incredibly good with compressivestrength, but it's um fairly
weak with torsion.
Yeah.
Um, but it's got thoseincredibly important insulation
properties.
So if you're looking at myceliumfor construction, you want to be
(27:27):
pairing it with complementarymaterials.
So you might have your loadbearing in a different material,
but your insulation propertiescoming in with the mycelium.
So this is where you'd becombining biocomposites.
Yes, right, exactly.
Or um, you know, engineering insupport structures.
SPEAKER_00 (27:46):
Right.
So I can imagine a world wherethere could be a mycelial
thermal and acoustic barrier ina wall, and then you have like a
uh like a hemp crete brick, andthen maybe on the other side you
have like a hemp board as well,or maybe like a scoby, like a
bacterial cellulose blended upand dried to use as something on
(28:09):
the back.
I can imagine seeing like astack like that of like all
these biomaterials that could gointo making like new walls and
things like that that could befabricated in a pretty short
amount of time.
unknown (28:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:20):
Add in some kelp and you've nearly got the whole
spread of material outcomes youcould need.
SPEAKER_00 (28:25):
That's it.
We've slowly been collecting umall of the different um folks
working on this space so that wecan be like, let's just put them
all together and see whathappens.
SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
And they do look beautiful together.
I think they're verycomplementary, like material
groups.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Are there any um design studios working with all
of those materials here inAustralia?
SPEAKER_02 (28:47):
I'm not aware of anything that's really
specializing um in in that area,but I do know that there's a lot
of active interests inincorporating these materials.
Um it's it's almost likeeveryone's been just dying to
(29:08):
get their hands on them,essentially, and and is really
looking forward to figuring outhow to include them in their
processes.
SPEAKER_00 (29:15):
Yeah, so on that, on that note, I I I 100% agree with
what you're saying.
But then the there's anotherpart of my brain which uh flicks
into like the cynical businessmind of being like, well, um,
will it be scalable?
Uh, how can we ensure that it'sa good drop-in?
Will it get to the same pricepoint?
(29:36):
You know, like all the classic,which you would get asked all
the time by anyone, um, sort ofasking these sort of things.
Like, and I imagine another bigone, you know, in addition to
just those properties, um, wouldbe like regulatory things,
right?
Like if something has to be umfire retardant or if it has to
meet a certain standard.
And and that standard is managedby a group of people that
(29:58):
probably also are the industry.
And then you're like, well, it'sprobably not going to get passed
based on that, unless you have alot of money to get it through a
different path.
Do you know what I mean?
I can imagine that there wouldbe potential systemic barriers
that are maybe going to begetting in the way of bringing
these products to market.
I'm sure you've maybe even dealtwith these yourself.
(30:19):
I would love to know what youmight think these barriers would
be, say for fungi and maybeother biomaterials, and how you
think they could be alleviated,whether that is from like
government intervention orsupport or you know, um
something like a collabs tryingto offer support or um just uh
it doesn't matter, I guess, how.
(30:40):
Like I'd be so curious to seewhat your thoughts are on that.
SPEAKER_02 (30:44):
That's a great question.
Um I think that the really themost fundamental step in that
process is having your minimumviable product, whatever that
is, so you can at least start.
Having full certification is uma real like down the really
(31:06):
sophisticated end of gettingsomething new to market.
You kind of need to be sure thatyou're on the right track first,
uh, which allows you to gain abit of traction, but that's not
to discount how challenging of aphase that is.
Um but one thing that's reallyhelpful to have before you have
(31:30):
your full certification, whichis a significant investment for
any business, um, is how do youconduct indication testing early
and and like have thataccessible so you can make some
decisions about whether you goforward or not.
SPEAKER_00 (31:49):
What is indication testing?
SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
So say you want to um understand whether your
product is home compostable.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Right.
And it might cost you 30k tohave 30k to figure out whether
or not it's home compostable.
Potentially.
Couldn't you just home compostit?
SPEAKER_02 (32:08):
This is this is the important part of um the the
phase before it's easy to justuh go get certified, for
example.
Right.
Is when you do have to just homecomp like you have to try things
out physically to give yourselfan indication of do you go for
the certification?
(32:29):
Um, but you have to do thatacross the board with everything
to do with your product.
Will people accept it at theprice point you want to offer
it?
Like, does it function?
How does it perform?
Um, you're gonna have to do allof that before you even think
about certification becausethose questions and answers may
change what you have in yourhands.
SPEAKER_00 (32:51):
Yeah, I can imagine it's kind of like a like every
different part of the problem isdynamic and can change based on
other inputs and outputs.
So you're dealing with likequite a complex system of trying
to get this thing from ideationto actualization.
And especially when it's a zeroto one, like these a lot of the
times these things don't existor there's no precedence for it.
(33:13):
So when you go to test it,they're like, I mean, you can
test it against uh brick, yeah,and you're like, well, it's not
a brick.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, we can test itagainst this, but it's it's it's
not it's its own thing, it's thebeginning of infinity.
You know, we're startingsomething new here.
Um, yeah, I can imagine it wouldbe challenging because you have
(33:34):
to make it analogous to currentthings that people know rather
than have it clearly carved outas its own defined area, which I
mean, this is what you see thishappen with um cultivated meat
for a prime example.
So we have members here workingon cultivated meat.
They like, is it agriculture?
Is it cell biology?
You know, it's deep tech, sure,but like where does this thing
(33:55):
fit?
SPEAKER_02 (33:55):
Can you call it meat?
But like that's what the enduser is like looking for in an
experience of something thatthey want to brown and 100%.
SPEAKER_00 (34:06):
You know, and it kind of is style.
Like I mean, it is agriculture.
We we're cultivating and growingfood, but it's just using a
high-tech process.
So it's same with the leathers.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (34:18):
What counts as a leather, what counts as a hide.
But I I think spaces likecollabs are so important for
that phase where you're justtrying to understand what you
have in your hands.
Um and like sometimes literallyimpact that it could have on the
world.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:34):
Yeah.
What is this?
Speaking of which, we um we needto, I still really keen to do a
try and do a little collab withyou guys, maybe some mycelium
paneling or or something fun inthe space, or just to showcase
some of your stuff.
Because it would I think, as yousaid, it's it's quite striking
and beautiful.
Um, so we'd love to showcasesome stuff in here.
SPEAKER_02 (34:53):
It's such a um incredible talking point.
So we do a few exhibitions andevent events because fungi just
create beautiful installationsthat um draw people in.
Um and yeah, I I think it'sreally uh lovely to see people
(35:14):
like gathering around fungalsculptures and materials.
And we often um have people bequite surprised by the textures
and the feel of the material,for example.
It's nice to have people upclose to it.
SPEAKER_00 (35:30):
So it's way more hands-on than like, I don't
know, traditional art.
You're like, yeah, come and playwith it.
SPEAKER_02 (35:35):
We encourage people to like touch the materials
because they are so surprised.
Um the the texture I'd sort ofdescribe as being somewhere
between cork and velvet or likea felt, like it's very soft, but
it's got like a it's just aparadox.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
But I love it.
Yeah, I know exactly what youmean, having having touched it
and handled it.
Um, it's so fascinating.
And what I what I love and whatI think is potentially an
enabling constraint andfascinating about these things
is they literally are designedfor decomposition, right?
So I know Andrew made a fungibrick a while ago um and was
displaying it at the Monash TechSchool, and then um they came
(36:15):
back after the after the theholiday break and um it was
hollow.
And this collection of ants oror some other organism had gone
up there and eaten all themycelium and just left the the
the biome, like the I guesslet's say the substrate.
Um, and I and just just knowingthat that is possible is is both
(36:36):
fascinating and beautifulbecause it means it's ticking
the box for all of the rightthings from nature's
perspective.
unknown (36:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:43):
But I can see how then someone will be like, well,
yeah, I'm not gonna build a wallout of that.
unknown (36:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
But I can still see it as being like, well, you can
still replace things or you canfind coatings and like nature
has ways to preserve and to coatand to make things less
attractive to organisms.
So it's not that it's um, as yousaid, it's just the beginning
and we're starting to figurethese things out.
And I would be curious to know,like, is there any um you
(37:09):
obviously don't have to tell meanything sensitive, but like,
have you figured out a treatmentthing for your paper or for the
fungi that allows it to havedifferent properties?
Like, do you use a beeswax?
Have you experimented withanything like that to come up
with new and novel, I guess,textures and ways of working
with it?
SPEAKER_02 (37:27):
Yeah, that's um a lot of what I do within the
organization.
The fun stuff.
The fun stuff.
Uh, but yeah, we we have optionsfor waterproofing, we can change
the surface texture, we canchange the color, um, we can
grow sort of interestingsculptural forms out of it.
(37:49):
Um we do a bit of uh surfacetreatments with a laser cutter
um or putting textures into themycelium.
Um it picks up all those surfacetreatments really well.
Um, but all those options uhopen up new applications for the
(38:11):
mycelium.
So waterproofing being asignificant one for extending
the lifespan and um makingsomething like interiors make
more sense for it.
Um, even in its raw form,though, we're finding the
materials um are quite solid andstable for several years.
(38:32):
So we're not finding thatthey're um, you know,
disintegrating um super easily.
It's more when you introducethose natural elements like um
hungry insects or um moisturecompost conditions, then you'll
have uh the material umbreakdown, but it's pretty
(38:52):
stable and inert dry.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
Where do you think the field of biodesign is going
to go in the next decade or so?
So, like what what do you see?
What are the glimmers of hope?
Like, obviously, we've beentalking about all this sort of
stuff.
What do you think needs tohappen to help get these things
into the mainstream and and makeit as uh make this preferable
(39:15):
future possible, I guess?
SPEAKER_02 (39:18):
Um I see some of the bottlenecks being solved by
having some circular economysystems in place.
It's very ad hoc and likeindividual organizations
happening, and there's a littlebit of focus on trying to get
(39:40):
things linked up.
Um, part of the challenge isthat we have very dispersed
waste systems.
No one knows how much of what isgoing where, um, but a
significant portion of it isgoing to the tip or being burnt.
Yeah.
(40:00):
Um, and that's just a valueopportunity for us there and
quite a significant like even ifyou're just focusing on the
financial side, that's a lot ofopportunity.
Um, but economically andsocially, there's a lot there as
well.
So I am seeing some reallyinteresting impact-based
(40:22):
business models backed by thesenatural material solutions.
Um, they're certainly becomingmore accessible and available to
um smaller organizations.
So the MOQs are coming downquite significantly.
SPEAKER_00 (40:42):
MOQs.
SPEAKER_02 (40:43):
So minimum orders, um volumes essentially, are
becoming um more accessible.
Of waste streams or of of uhnatural material like
biomaterial solutions for thatreplace existing materials that
are problematic.
(41:04):
So something to replace yourpolystyrene boxes or your bubble
wrap.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
And they're not going to ask you for five tons
of it next week.
Exactly.
Instead, they're like, let'sokay, I understand.
SPEAKER_02 (41:14):
Yep.
So that's sort of um becomingmore available, um, which I
think is really nice and andwill have a significant impact.
Um, and the materials arebecoming quite sophisticated and
refined in their applicationnow.
So they're moving out of thatspeculative phase into
(41:35):
commercial reality.
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
I love um, I love that you just called out one of
the latest initiatives thatwe're trying to work on, which
is great, um, is which we'relooking at collaborating with
Materium uh and they're workingwith Google org as well.
About like, well, you know, wecould hypothetically use an AI
to do industrial ecology atscale, which could link
everything together in aplatform which is free to use.
(42:00):
Like you could you could setthis up and and create that
value that you're speaking ofthrough allowing people to see
the and like see the flows ofresources because you've done a
systems map which allows you toidentify where all the different
things are.
And then what you can do is youcould have a fungi solutions
based in the wine region to beable to then capitalize on all
of this, you know, spent grapematerial to then create X.
(42:23):
You can have, oh, we've got akelp farm over here.
Let's do a bioprocessingfacility here to be able to turn
that into um plasticalternatives for packaging and
other things.
Like once you you can'tnecessarily I don't know if this
is probably someone else'squote, I'm silly, but you're not
necessarily going to be able tochange a system without knowing
what the system might look likeor how some of those patterns
(42:45):
and processes are flowing.
And through observing that, youcan then find appropriate
leverage points to kind of nudgeor intervene with the system to
make it more effective.
Like, even though they'recurrently focusing from a
reductionist perspective ofisolation and segregation,
really, when you take a biggerpicture view of it, it's all
(43:06):
interconnected and interlinkedand interrelated.
And that's the problem, is thatthere is a lack of the systemic
awareness of the problems.
And everyone's just doing what'sright for them, full well
knowing that it's not what'sright for humanity or the planet
as a whole, but it makes senseeconomically in the short term.
Um, you know, but it's startingto rethink in this sort of
living systems way and beinglike, no, we need to be trying
(43:29):
to take a like a widercircumference of care and a
wider circumference of trying tocomprehend the whole.
Um, and it's just excitingbecause you said that.
And I'm like, that is literallyjust a grant proposal that we
put in to try and collaboratearound because that does feel
like the low-hanging fruit atthe moment is helping people
collectively coordinate and comeinto a pattern of coherence so
(43:51):
that we can shift away from thiscurrent method of doing that is
degenerative and destructive,towards something that might be
leaning towards a moreregenerative materials economy.
So cool.
It's exciting to hear thatyou're thinking the same sort of
things are glimmering, whichwhich makes sense.
We know we're we're we'reswimming in the same river
system, um, you know, doing whatwe're doing, so it makes sense.
(44:14):
Um yeah, what are your thoughtson on that?
SPEAKER_02 (44:17):
Or we're really excited by the idea of
regenerative manufacturing.
So um our processes creatingsomething nourishing at the end.
So even our waste productenriches soil and and goes into
soil testing programs.
So I think there's so manyexciting um opportunities when
(44:40):
you're you're looking at yourorganizations this way to um see
good things happen out of it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:47):
Yeah, and again, it's bringing that um the lens
of like, let's say, biology orum ecology or what have you to
it, right?
Is this this regenerativeenterprise approach where you're
giving more than you take, um,where you're trying to look for
those ways in which you cancollaborate effectively with
other entities in the spacewhere you're because there's
collaborative advantage andcollective intelligence
(45:09):
advantages that you can get fromthat, and like diversity of
opinion and thought anddiversity of organizations.
So, way better than amonoculture, right?
A polyculture is going to be waymore biodiverse, more innovation
from a biological perspective.
So, like it's so easy.
I mean, I I say it's so easy,but it's maybe that's because I
have a biology background andecology background, and then
(45:32):
also study business so I can seehow these two can fit together,
which is maybe unconventional orI guess what we call business
unusual.
Um, but I do feel like that thatcollaboration and that
transdisciplinary approach isgoing to be essential for this
ecosystem to, I guess, come tolife.
And um, yeah, I guess on thatnote, I would just be super
(45:52):
curious from your perspective,how how dependent are you upon
collaboration and trying to workwith other people in the space
to bring your ideas to life?
SPEAKER_02 (46:01):
We're really excited by partnerships because it
introduces us to challenges andproblems that we won't have been
aware of.
Um, someone might come to us andsay, we've been looking for a
solution to this materialproblem or this packaging piece
or um this product for so long,and we haven't found anything
(46:23):
that fits.
Um, and we think that fungimight be a good outcome.
We get to work towards that andmake make a solution.
Um, so I really enjoy thepartnership collaborations where
you're solving uh somethingthat's really exciting.
Um, and I think when you're anorganization at a small scale
(46:46):
scale as well, it allows you totest and trial things out.
So our facility in Thornbury isvery much a pilot facility so
that we can do case studies andtry new waste sources and do all
this important RD that needs tohappen with fungi and Australian
waste.
SPEAKER_00 (47:06):
But it sounds like as well, like uh you're both an
RD and an innovation at the sametime.
And it's acknowledging that it'snot necessarily either or.
You can be doing fundamentalresearch as at the same time as
doing challenge-led innovation,which it's just it's great to
hear you saying that as well,because we we kind of feel very
similar in in the way in whichyou know it's uh challenge
(47:28):
challenge-led from industry orthese other places is probably
going to be a really viable wayto create biomaterial solutions
when you know there's someonewho's a problem holder and you
know that you have the potentialto be a problem solver, and you
know that they might have theresources, whether that's
financial, social, knowledge,whatever sort of uh resources
(47:50):
you might need to be able tobring that to fruition.
Um, I think that is arguably oneof the most effective ways for
you know deep tech organizationsor buyer-led organizations like
Fungi Solutions to try and bringideas to life.
Um, and it's also just like avery adaptive way of doing
business, which can behorrifying for those who are
(48:11):
used to more traditionalmethods.
But um, yeah, no, it's excitingto hear you say that because I
think we really resonate withthat as being a way in which we
try and operate as well.
It's like everything's apotential experiment.
It's creating safe to failenvironments to rapidly iterate
and prototype on these things,and that's where the knowledge
and the learning comes from.
It's no different to evolutionwhere you have like a whole um
(48:34):
species, and every differentorganism is uh in that species
is essentially a new inventionof that species as a whole, and
you're kind of rapidlyprototyping and seeing what
works, and then you know thebest things get passed on.
Um, and I feel like it's asimilar sort of approach when
you're trying to bring this newuh thing to life, I guess you
(48:54):
could say.
SPEAKER_02 (48:54):
Yeah, nature's very inspiring and we can learn a lot
there.
SPEAKER_00 (48:58):
Yeah, that's for sure.
Um speaking of learning a lot,what advice would you give young
scientists or I mean, just to beclear, you actually studied
fashion, not science.
SPEAKER_02 (49:12):
So maybe that's not even I don't know, I don't know
what the right question wouldbe, but like it's my my
encouragement would be that youdon't need to be a formally
trained scientist to uh enjoylearning, um, ask good
questions, and uh if you uh havethe capacity to be a little
creative about your experimentdesign, you can do a lot without
(49:36):
formal training.
Um so I um I think it can be anamazing resource to deepen your
your understanding in a field.
And in fact, I'm going back todo formal training because yeah,
I'm gonna start a master's thisyear.
SPEAKER_00 (49:53):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (49:53):
Um in fungal materials.
Um RMIT.
SPEAKER_00 (49:58):
You're kidding.
They have a you can do amaster's in fungal materials at
RMIT.
SPEAKER_02 (50:02):
I'm designing my own project, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (50:04):
That's uh that's so boss.
Just being like, yeah, I'm gonnamake my own.
Like I wanna do because that'swhat I struggled with trying to
do like further research wasgoing, I want to do this thing
that doesn't exist.
How do I I can't just do that?
SPEAKER_02 (50:18):
Why not?
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
You've just motivated me.
That's so exciting.
SPEAKER_02 (50:22):
That that would be my encouragement for people that
are excited by STEM is that umyou you can learn a lot off your
own steam.
Um I was self-taught with how tocultivate mushrooms, and it it's
important for me to acknowledgethe amazing community around
(50:43):
mycology that freely publishesresources.
I believe in like open sourcesharing of cultivation
experience.
So it's because there was thatum you know uh open and like
fostered community available inmycology, I was able to sort of
transfer some skills.
(51:04):
Um, but I think followed the theinterest first and foremost.
And um yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (51:10):
And that was um, there's a fun little loop back
here here and there andeverywhere, right?
So some of the hands-onexperience was through
bioinquisitive, that's right,the community science lab, and
then the fungi group, like Iknow my community was a part of
that as well.
So it's interesting how there'sall these different loops, and I
I'm so glad you said thatbecause I don't know if we've
(51:30):
told you about the new civicscience hub.
I know that you came along tothe first like bioq relaunch,
but yeah, we are looking atexploring this whole new um, I
guess, educational.
Like, we're even going to godown the roll, the direction of
becoming a registered trainingorganization to be able to offer
education in these new andemerging fields of like
(51:51):
circularity, biodesign, livingsystems thinking, ecological
design, synthetic biology, allof this stuff that is incredibly
meaningful and could potentiallyhelp us move the needle, but uh
might not necessarily always beaccessible until like your PhD,
you know, where it's like, well,actually, the skills that you
want to do are pretty simple,like it's not hard.
(52:11):
It's like cooking or following apretty simple recipe book.
Like it's none of the science isactually hard.
It's just uh, and I don't wantto that might sound mean or like
I'm trying to, you know, uh, Ican see how that could be
interpreted the wrong way.
But uh realistically, if youwant to learn a specific skill
set for a certain task or youwant to learn about these
things, you can do thatself-taught research and then
(52:34):
come into a place and learn,okay, here's how I cultivate
mushrooms, or if I was gonna dothis, I could do, you know, this
pathway and and in like six to12 weeks be at a like a master's
grade level of competencybecause you've just spent way
more time in the lab rather thanin the theoretical.
SPEAKER_02 (52:51):
Yeah, I I would never want to see someone that's
excited by nature or orbiomaterials or anything like
that not get involved becausethey felt like they didn't have
the skills.
And I think that's why umorganizations looking at citizen
science um were so amazing, likemy community, so that people
(53:14):
could have support from peoplethat had um their scientific
training and paths along thatexperience.
Um you can contribute to likeconservation and um, you know,
DNA collection and that sort ofthing, all really important
projects.
Someone's been trained in thescientific method to do all the
(53:35):
data collection, but we stillneed people with hands-on, um,
we still need um people uhobserving field sites and
collecting samples.
So there's many different waysto be involved in STEM, uh,
which I think is amazing.
And I'm very excited to see thatmore accessible.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Um yeah, and even from the design perspective,
right?
Like I don't know, I guess maybebecause I try and see things
from not necessarily a singledisciplinary perspective, but to
me, like science, design, Imean, science and design are
similar sort of things, right?
But science being a very narrowsubset of design in which you're
designing, as you said,protocols and procedures to try
(54:15):
and do X based off a certainphilosophy.
Philosophy underpins design andscience, and then design being a
certain way of looking at theworld and how do we bring um
artifacts into reality, whetherthey're physical or digital
artifacts?
So I yeah, see it all asinterrelated.
And but I guess as well fromthat side of things, I I'd be
curious to know what yourthoughts are in regards to
(54:38):
sharing a sentiment todesigners.
Is it the same sort of thing?
Like just because you don't havethe scientific background
doesn't mean you shouldn't becurious and lean into exploring
with these things.
Like, absolutely.
Is there any um any like thingsthat people should know before
looking to experiment withbiomaterials that make it
different to say other materialforms?
SPEAKER_01 (54:59):
That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02 (55:01):
Um I I think it's the same in the sense that if
you're wanting to get involvedin design, it's really about
asking good questions and andtrying things out as well.
Um, there's a little less focuson the rigor side of things
that's really important in STEMfor like measure and measuring
(55:24):
and analysis.
In terms of um working withbiomaterials, my only caution
for someone new is that in thefirst couple of years of
learning how to cultivate, Igrew so much mold.
I grew so much mold.
So please just expect pleasejust expect to um have you know
(55:48):
challenges learning how to docultivation and like learning
how to collaborate with livingorganisms.
SPEAKER_00 (55:54):
Learning aseptic techniques.
SPEAKER_02 (55:56):
Yeah, they they're they're alive.
Um, you know, I had a reallyamazing um sort of chat with
Alia Parker on a panel once, whosaid um that she had to uh be
intentional about what she wasfeeding her fungi because they
(56:17):
would get bored of the same foodsource in the lab and they would
just die of boredom.
So, like, you know, you you'reworking with something alive.
SPEAKER_00 (56:26):
That is, that is wild.
SPEAKER_02 (56:28):
Yeah, they like a diverse diet just like we do.
SPEAKER_00 (56:31):
And which makes total sense.
Um makes to question humans howwe manage to survive off like a
diet of chips and other things.
SPEAKER_03 (56:40):
But I I that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (56:43):
No, I just now that's got me wanting to ask you
some more spicy or strangequestions.
Do you think, like, when youlook at working with these
living systems, do you think thedifferent mushrooms have
different personalities?
SPEAKER_02 (56:54):
They certainly have different growth habits, that's
for sure.
Like yeah, in some ways, they'revery tenacious and interesting.
Um, I think a lot of people arestruck by how um sort of
surprising they are.
They sort of emerge reallysuddenly and they're very
(57:15):
mysterious, and usually a lot oftheir processes are happening
underground and they're hidden.
Um but even in the conditionsthat we're cultivating them,
where we can see them, we cansee how they're growing, um,
they still surprise us all thetime by chewing through
materials we didn't expect themto, or or fruiting randomly, or
(57:36):
just producing the mostbeautiful forms we've ever seen,
just just naturally withouttrying too hard.
So it's pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_00 (57:45):
So, what would you say has been your favorite
surprise?
You've come in and been like,that is I was not expecting
that.
SPEAKER_02 (57:53):
Yeah, it's usually something like we'll be growing
a piece and it might just getlike put under a table or
something, and you'll be goingand looking for something else,
and you'll pull out this blockand it's got dinner plate-sized
mushrooms there, and you've justscored dinner for the whole team
because we had unexpectedharvest.
(58:14):
Like they they just dosurprising things all on their
own.
SPEAKER_00 (58:19):
So, to clarify, in the process of turning the
living organism into a finalproduct, usually there is a
process of let's saydevitalization, or is that not
always the case?
SPEAKER_02 (58:39):
It's not always the case.
Like you can simply air drythem, they're gonna be sort of
um able to be like regrown bybeing rehydrated at that point.
Um, most of the materials areheat treated to make them inert
and non-living, right?
(59:00):
So um that just ensures thatyou've just got a base material
that's not going to be.
SPEAKER_00 (59:06):
Your fungi's not gonna eat into your speaker,
which you're transporting orstoring.
SPEAKER_02 (59:10):
Yeah, it just creates a consistent um end
product.
So most of the materials areheat treated in that way.
Um, some pieces we don't um sortof uh stop the fungi growing
because we want to grow morelater in the process.
Just depends what outcome youwant.
SPEAKER_00 (59:30):
So when you say later later in the process, I'd
be curious to know what youwould be making that you would
want that to fruit.
Or is it like you might get itto fruit and then you heat treat
it again?
Like, are you like obviously themycelium is fascinating, but
I've seen like a lot of artpieces where they'll have
fruiting bodies as well becausethat's obviously quite
(59:51):
provocative, or it's curious.
Like, so would you then like alot of the time are they then
heat treated to maintain thatfor?
longer or you can do that.
SPEAKER_03 (01:00:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:03):
Interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:04):
But yeah, it's just all about fine-tuning those
parts of the cultivation processto get the outcome that you
want.
So there's like the standardmycelium growth and then you
have the the beautiful skin thatyou're able to produce on the
outside that produces adifferent texture.
And you've got the fruiting umcomponent of it as well.
(01:00:25):
So you can change theenvironmental conditions in that
way.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:30):
Right.
So I guess riffing off that toprovide an analogy so there's
almost like a uh the differentlayers or different types of
leather you can kind of havethat with the fungi if if I'm
going to interpret what you'vesaid.
So there's like a skin layer andthen maybe if you shave that off
you've got a Nubuck and then youcan you potentially work with
(01:00:50):
just that skin layer and thenthat is like a full grain
leather.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:55):
Yeah.
So the mycelium has differentproperties at different parts of
the material.
What's the most wild myceliumcomposite or just mycelium-based
product that you've seenrecently can be one of your
products if you really want Idon't really mind um I've I've
(01:01:17):
been um really interested in theidea of Australian um bushfire
habitats for wildlife withmycelium taking advantage of the
fire resistant properties theability to create you know small
molded forms I think it couldhave an incredible like um
(01:01:42):
environmental and ecosystemimpact.
So that's an application that Ithink would be really exciting
and specific to where we are andand the types of um challenges
that we have here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:55):
That's fascinating because I was that was actually
going to be another question Ihaven't even got around to
asking for there's like ahundred more but I'm also wary
of time.
But I'd I would be so curious toknow like on that note do you do
you have like if you're going toship something overseas and
you're going to use fungalpackaging do you need to ensure
that it's like an oystermushroom which everyone has
(01:02:16):
everywhere so they're not goingto worry about biocontamination
or like because I can imagine Ican see that you might have to
cultivate and use Australianspecies in your products locally
because we might have strict uhimport regulations or
biosecurity measures like Iassume that this is one of the
first things you had to thinkabout with your packaging
because you've done packagingfor wine right yeah so the heat
(01:02:39):
treatment process is whathandles that so it just makes it
a an a natural inert non-livingcan't regrow material.
Does that kill spores?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02:48):
Yeah okay that that was just that that's it that's
all I've got on that but um yeahon that note though with the the
fire resistance with Australianfungi that is something that
I've always thought isfascinating because we do come
from a country where you havequite a lot of this happening
and I would I wonder like whatspecies are the most uh
(01:03:13):
resilient in that way because Iknow we have Ganoderma which um
grow a lot on eucalypts and Iknow that they were actually
used as a means of transportingfire they would actually use
them as a as an ember becausethey would burn for ages because
they had quite a dense profilebut what what fungi locally do
you think is a really excitingsort of prospect from this uh
(01:03:36):
flame resistant sort of side ofthings honestly we're just at
the very beginning ofunderstanding Australian fungi
ecology in general let are letalone the potential applications
that are sort of available to uswith the species that we have
here.
So that is um a a reallyexciting challenge but one
(01:04:00):
that's going to take many ummycology researchers and and um
ecologists and that sort ofthing.
Our Australian Ganoderm is avery interesting and impressive
species because they haveincredibly dense leathery
mycelium so they're incrediblebut so much opportunity um
(01:04:26):
that's yet untapped in inAustralian fungal um species.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:33):
So on on the concept of untapped potential do you do
you think that there's a role toplay with um things like AI and
machine learning when it comesto biomaterials?
Like I know for example I'm sureyou're familiar with Materium
they're looking at doing an AIsort of platform for
biomaterials and regenerativedesign.
(01:04:55):
Do you think that things likethis could play a really big
role in helping people orhelping at least raise awareness
about these sort of materialsand do you think that's
something that you would look atin integrating or incorporating
into your processes or RD sortof approach?
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:11):
That's a really good question.
Yeah I I think it will be areally important part of the
equation particularly whenyou're looking at um like scale
and volume and creating largerimpacts having modeling systems
just helps us to work withbigger data sets and that sort
(01:05:33):
of thing that are just reallyhard to grapple with as a single
person.
There's also all sorts ofopportunities in terms of like
automating your flows and andthat sort of thing.
We haven't sort of put any plansin place to have AI integration
(01:05:56):
just yet.
Still very much producingmaterials by hand.
But I could see this being areally important part of the
process when it comes to thingslike contamination and how you
manage those sorts of challengesin a scaled up lab.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06:13):
And even I can imagine so I've I've done a lot
of envisioning on this stuffbecause I find it so fascinating
is that I can imagine even fromlike a like a lab ops or
manufacturing ops side of thingslike having having a having
something that can automaticallymonitor and and manage and
maintain humidity temperatureall of these sorts of things
(01:06:34):
having like a like a like a labmanagement system with an AI
interface where you could dothese natural language commands
or conversations it's just supercool.
I really want to designsomething like that.
I think it would be anincredibly fun way to I guess
bring this sort of stuff to lifeand to scale in a way that might
not mean that you don't have tohave heaps of people doing
(01:06:55):
boring and monotonous things andpeople can be spending more time
playing and doing the RD that'sthe real fun things that humans
are really good at um but yeah Idon't know I just think there's
so much space so much potentialin that space I agree.
Yeah what um oh what do youthink we should sort of leave
folks with is there any otherthoughts on your mind that are
(01:07:18):
rattling around or any updates?
Like is there anything newthat's happening at Fungi
Solutions up like from anupcoming perspective?
Any fun things from uh landingfunding or collaborations?
What's going on?
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:31):
Yeah we've just started um having some mycelium
leather available fordistribution so we're getting in
contact with everyone to letthem know that we have our hands
on the goods and we're uh reallyexcited about the RD pathway uh
for the leather-based materials.
(01:07:54):
Um there's a lot of uh potentialin that sector and um having a
more sustainable option for thattype of material is going to be
amazing.
So we're very excited to um havethe leather coming along and
also plans for making itsomething really um high end and
(01:08:18):
special in the future.
So that's underway where umwe've we've got our safe round
of investment happening at themoment.
So we've had some really amazinglocal supporters that are
excited to see uh the myceliumsolutions happening in Australia
and we're preparing for scale upand a um more sophisticated
(01:08:42):
investment strategy so it'sunderway um so if there are
people in the network that umare really excited by climate
solutions like that I'drecommend getting in touch it's
the sweet spot I wish I wish Icould get in touch with with
bountiful amounts of money tosupport you I don't I don't have
any but I wish I could but we'vewe've always been so supportive
(01:09:06):
um collaboratively between ourorganizations so it's been
wonderful.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:10):
No that's that's it.
Well thanks so much for carvingout some time of your Friday
afternoon for a chat.
Yeah no it's been really lovelyand I look forward to seeing
what continues to emerge fromthe collaborative space between
and yeah hopefully see you againon here sometime soon.
Perfect thanks all right thanksso much for tuning in once again
(01:09:34):
that was uh a delightfulconversation with Amanda.
Um yeah gonna keep this endreally short and pretty much
just stop talking thanks so muchand enjoy the rest of your day
night wherever you are aroundthe world
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