Today's Article

Dr. Ben Reeve, Co-Founder, Modern Synthesis: Bacteria are really amazing. Sometimes they can be harmful, but most of the time they're really 8beneficial. We use bacteria to make sourdough bread, cheese, yogurt. We can work with bacteria to make even more exciting new products. 

CNN Anchor: The aim? To create 9sustainable 10alternatives to traditional fabrics and help 11curb 12emissions and 13pollution 14associated withthe fashion industry. Key to the company's process is 15cellulose, a type of fiber with a higher strength to 16weight ratio. It's known as nature's 17building block. It makes up materials like cotton, wood and bamboo. It all starts here with a bacteria 18invisible to the human eye. It's called K.rhaeticus and it's 19isolated from kombucha, fermented tea. 

Dr. Ben Reeve: We feed that with sugars and then it produces nanocellulose, which is a special, fine, strong form of cellulose. 

Unknown, Modern Synthesis: It’s eight times stronger than steel on a fiber level. 

Dr. Ben Reeve: We can then process it, 20manipulate it at the nanostructure. 

Unknown, Modern Synthesis: We use green chemistries to process the material to add additional 21functionalities, whether that be 22waterproofness or just 23aesthetic properties like color and different patterning. We then form the material together with a natural textile. 

Dr. Ben Reeve: And that allows us to 24customize the kind of strength and flexibility in new ways. 

CNN Anchor: Final products are 100% animal and plastic free. But to create products on a mass scale, like the fashion industry is used to, is 25costly. 

Unknown, Modern Synthesis: 26In the long run, I'm confident that we can create materials that can sit at the same price points as those that we use today and to use existing equipment from the textile industry and the food industry so that we don't have to build everything 27from scratch. 

CNN Anchor: Modern Synthesis is part of a growing number of companies in the next generation material space, producing new textiles from raw materials such as mushroom 28mycelium, 29algae or bacteria.