Have you ever wondered how fungi can change the world? Why is everyone speaking about fungi these days?

Fungi are not only the source of delicious mushrooms, but also the basis of many innovative and sustainable solutions for various challenges facing humanity and the planet. From biodegradable packaging to plant-based meat, from soil remediation to organ regeneration, fungi are proving to be the ultimate bio-engineers and allies of life.

In this newsletter, we will talk about recent NatureBacked episodes where we explored the amazing potential and applications of fungi, and how you can join the Fungi revolution.

We talked with two winners of the "Future is Fungi" awards and the organiser Susanne Gløersen joined also the discussions.

🎙️E79: Making Batteries From Fungi With Jens Sørensen

🎙️E80: Cleaning Soils With Novobiom's Fungi

Jens Laurids Sørensen from Aalborg University, the research award winner, introduced the winning project to create the world's first biosynthesised battery, which uses pigments from fungi.

“It is much better than the solutions right now, which are based on mining different metal ions or chemical synthesis based on compounds or chemicals from the oil industry," Sørensen said.

He said it would likely take around five years for the project to grow from a laboratory setting to the real world.

"To also honour the research, we wanted to have the award for uncovering this. We wanted to thoroughly uncover the new-frontier ways to use fungi for elemental solutions. We want to inspire more research and innovation in this space, and also to commercialise more of this research, get this research off the ground," said Susanne Gløersen, the organiser of the award.

“We believe that we will see so many breakthroughs and innovations in this space,” she said.

But why now? What’s the fungi craze all about? I asked Caroline Zaoui, PhD , co-founder of Novobiom, the winner of the startup award.

“I think this is an organism that people can more easily relate to because we can see some of them. So far, we've been working with microbes like bacteria, and microalgae, you don't necessarily see them with the naked eye. And that's not the case with fungi. So it speaks more easily to people, I think they can see them in their natural environment,” she said.

Novobiom is cleaning contaminated soils using fungi and is raising funding to build a fungal fermentation pilot facility in 2024.

"We aim by using fungi to turn bulk waste into high-value applications using a fungal micro refinery," Zaoui said.

"The big milestone is going to be the buildup of our fungal fermentation pilot for the micro refinery angle that we are working on to demonstrate that we can process a certain volume of waste to generate compounds of high added value, and demonstrate that we can bring a solution for the end of waste in the textile industry," Zaoui said, adding that the company was also aiming to make use of any waste stream to produce biobased and circular molecules for the cosmetics industry.

Novobiom's main product is a soil mycoremediation solution, which uses mushrooms to degrade and detoxify pollutants in the soil.

While you are on the fungi channel, check out an episode from early 2023:

🎙️E43: Eating Construction Waste with MycoCycle

U.S.-based Mycocycle, Inc. trains mushrooms to eat construction waste.

“There is no waste in nature — that’s a man-made construct. And so, looking for solutions in nature to solve these problems is critical to how we battle this climate change,” said Joanne Rodriguez, LEED AP, FitWel Amb, CDT, founder of Mycocycle.

Next, we wish you a happy holiday season! We plan to spend time with family and be off-grid for a week or two. NatureBacked will be back in January. Cheers!