The field of ELMs is emerging and still in its infancy, but it promises radical and disruptive alternatives to our current methods of material production, fitting within a broader paradigm shift towards biofabrication which promises to become the dominant mode of manufacturing in the 21st Century. The project will address an existing development gap in the field by developing a portfolio of mycelium-based ELMs composed from a co-cultivation process utilising fungi and a bacterial strain. 

The researchers anticipate that adaptive growth of mycelium can be exploited to develop an autonomous bottom-up manufacturing technology, with properties such as strength, density and growth rate being locally informed by interactions with bacteria and the environment. They also aim to implement functions targeting ecological priorities such as the break-down of environmental pollutants and atmospheric carbon sequestration. 

In this project, the concept of mycelium-based ELMs further includes the genetic engineering of the bacterial partner, providing a further dimension of control towards the production of ELM’s with predictable functionalities, shapes and other properties. 

In the long term, this can not only completely transform our way of creating buildings and cities but holds infinite new potentials across all sectors by providing living materials that can regenerate, self-heal, and respond to environmental stimuli in a resource conscious way.