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BIO PIGMENTS

Fashion’s microbial dyeing machines

Nature Biotechnology volume 40, page 143 (2022)Cite this article

This article has been updated

Fashion innovators are paying attention. Colorifix collaborated with Stella McCartney and partnered with sustainable leisurewear innovator Pangaia to produce a capsule collection. Colorifix is backed by retail giant H&M, which has plans for a product launch later this year.

Colorifix was founded in 2016 by Ajioka, a synthetic biologist at the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, and microbiologist Orr Yarkoni, Colorifix CEO. The two scientists traveled to Nepal initially, with a mission to develop microbial biosensors to monitor arsenic contamination in water in the Terai region. Back in Kathmandu, however, the locals pointed at the source of the problem: toxic effluents from the textile industry were polluting their waterways and impairing their health. Seeing this, Ajioka and Yarkoni pivoted to using microbes to produce environmentally friendly pigments.

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Change history

  • 03 March 2022

    In the version of this article initially published, a composition error in the fourth sentence of the fourth paragraph, now corrected to read, in part, “petrochemical-derived pigments that require chromium-based fixatives,” had “arsenic” in place of “chromium.” The error has been corrected in the html and PDF versions of the article.

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  1. Nature Biotechnology https://www.nature.com/nbt/

    Lisa Melton

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  1. Lisa Melton
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Melton, L. Fashion’s microbial dyeing machines. Nat Biotechnol 40, 143 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01237-x

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