Since the discovery of the DNA Double Helix, sheep have been cloned, the human genome has been mapped, and now we’ve used DNA to make clothing.
71 years ago this year, a 36-year-old molecular biologist and biophysicist named Francis Crick got to his feet in the middle of lunch at his local pub, The Eagle, and announced that he and his colleague James Watson had “found the secret of life.”
Head to the outside of the pub today and look up, and you’ll find a small blue plaque that commemorates both the pub’s place in history and one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century.
“DNA Double Helix 1953 ‘The Secret of Life,’” it reads. “It was here on February 28th 1953 that Francis Crick and James Watson first announced their discovery of how DNA carries genetic information.”
Their discovery changed our understanding of the world.
It quickly led to breakthrough after breakthrough, something that’s obvious even if we just consider the last 30 years.
In 1990, the Human Genome Project, an international scientific research study with the goal of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes in the human genome, began. In 1996, Dolly the Sheep was cloned. In 1999, the first human chromosome was decoded. In 2000, the genetic code of the fruit fly, all 13,601 genes, was sequenced. In 2003 the Human Genome Project was completed, and it remains the world’s largest collaborative biological project.
When we first started making clothing, the idea of getting to work with DNA seemed as improbable as working with single layer graphene, or kryptonite. But thanks to two Cambridge scientists Orr Yarkoni and Jim Ajioka, we’re on the edge of a small revolution.
DNA doesn’t just make us, us. It also makes many of the colours we see in the natural world. And together Jim and Orr figured out how to pick out these genetic sequences that create specific colours in nature and use them to grow colours from scratch in a lab.
For the last 4 years we’ve been working in collaboration with their biotech start-up, Colorifix , which brings together the fields of biomimetics and molecular microbiology to genetically engineer microorganisms to produce naturally occurring pigments found in DNA.
In simple terms, instead of using synthetic dyes, it’s now possible to genetically engineer the colour blue.
So how do we actually make our DNA clothing?
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First you access one of the world’s open-source biomolecular databases. The Universal Protein Resource in Switzerland, and GenBank in Maryland house collections of sequences for 300,000+ organisms. Starting life in the 1980s, today they look after sequences for species from around the world – from plants and animals, to insects and microbes – and their libraries are doubling roughly every 18 months.
From these databases we select a protein enzyme found in the cells of the indigo plant. This protein can produce hues ranging from light blue to deep purple. And these DNA databases give us access to the information that encodes the instructions to make these specific colours.
Next comes the fun bit, as you’ll need to imagine a microbiologist with some rubber gloves, a microscope, and a big needle.
We then implant the DNA sequence of the indigoid plant into a microorganism – in this case it’s a single bacterial cell in a petri dish which self-replicates every 20 minutes. And as it replicates, it produces more and more indigo pigment.
To make enough colour to dye clothes we obviously need more than just a petri dish of indigo. So we send our genetically engineered microorganisms to RDD, a cutting-edge dyehouse in Portugal. Here they’re grown in the same way you’d brew beer – through fermentation.
The cells are added to a fermentation machine with water, sugar, yeast and plant waste. The more you feed them, the more they grow. And by doubling every 20 minutes they quickly create enough liquid to start dyeing clothes.
Once we’ve brewed the bacteria like beer, we then submerge the shorts, t shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts in the DNA soup we’ve brewed up. At this point the bacteria latch onto the surface of the clothing and release their pigment into the fibres of the material to colour it.
The process of submerging clothes in dye like this is called garment dyeing. It’s more difficult and takes more time than regular dyeing. And it’s especially difficult when you’re using a completely new kind of dye. But it makes fabric incredibly soft, and look and feel lived in from day one, with colour building up in the stitching and creases, while coming out paler at the edges.
So as we continue to explore alternatives to synthetic dyeing, we now have an entire range of clothes made from genetically engineered microorganisms and DNA.