FIT Team Wins Biodesign Challenge

FIT Students win BioDesign ChallengeEnormous amounts of textile waste end up in landfills—a costly waste of resources and a burden on the environment. But imagine if fabric could be made from natural, biodegradable materials and then recycled into a whole new fabric. That could help the fashion industry—one of the world’s worst polluters—become more sustainable. The FIT team created a “yarn” out of alginate (algae) and chitosan (fungi), which they extruded through a syringe as a filament and knitted into a fabric. The textile, though at an early stage of development, represents a step towards an eco-friendly fashion system.

This innovative project was the winner of the first Biodesign Challenge, in which FIT competed against eight leading colleges and universities—some of them, including Carnegie Mellon and Rensselaer, known for their science programs—to envision future applications of biotechnology. The projects were presented at the Museum of Modern Art in June.

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