{"id":179532,"date":"2026-08-10T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T05:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=179532"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:03:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:03:37","slug":"researchers-develop-programmable-living-textiles-from-fungal-mycelium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/researchers-develop-programmable-living-textiles-from-fungal-mycelium\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Develop Programmable Living Textiles from Fungal Mycelium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\u00a9 SIAT<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Fungal mycelium is a promising renewable material, but conventional processing generally eliminates the living activity that could support growth,\u00a0repair,\u00a0and environmental response.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A team\u00a0led by Dr.\u00a0ZHONG\u00a0Chao\u00a0from the State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology at\u00a0the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a flexible living textile based on Cordyceps militaris<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was published\u00a0in\u00a0Science Advances<\/em>\u00a0on July 24, 2026<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers grew C. militaris <\/em>in liquid culture, where it formed spherical mycelial pellets composed of intertwined fungal filaments. After being collected and placed into moulds, the pellets naturally bonded during mild drying to form free-standing sheets without additional scaffolds or adhesives. Glycerol treatment reduced the brittleness of the dried sheets, allowing them to be folded, cut, and sewn. A rope twisted from four narrow strips could support a one-kilogram weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team also introduced additional biological functions. Engineered yeast cells generated paleblue, red, orange, and purple colors, while nutrient-induced aerial hyphae enabled patterned growthand self-cleaning surfaces. Melanin-rich aerial hyphae from Aspergillus niger<\/em> further provided ultraviolet protection.Under humid, nutrient-rich conditions, some cells could become active again, enabling regrowth and repair; in soil composting tests, the material almost completely degraded in just over 40 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers assembled the functionalized sheets into a prototype dress,\u00a0demonstrating\u00a0that the material could be shaped and sewn into larger structures. Further work is needed to improve manufacturing consistency, washability, abrasion resistance, and control over biological activation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the author<\/strong>s noted, “beyond textile analogs, this paradigm provides a foundation for the broader development of adaptive, living material platforms across biomedical, environmental, and architectural domains.”\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Original publication<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A programmable fungal platform for engineered living textiles<\/a>; Science Advances<\/em>; DOI:10.1038\/s41586-025-09509-7<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fungal mycelium is a promising renewable material, but conventional processing generally eliminates the living activity that could support growth,\u00a0repair,\u00a0and environmental response.\u00a0 A team\u00a0led by Dr.\u00a0ZHONG\u00a0Chao\u00a0from the State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology at\u00a0the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a flexible living textile based on Cordyceps militaris. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":179551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The fabric can clean and repair itself, opening the door to recyclable fashion and biodegradable packaging","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,17143],"tags":[11270,10416,13444,14928,19092,12468],"supplier":[7471,19320,27035],"class_list":["post-179532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","category-recycling","tag-biodegradability","tag-circulareconomy","tag-fabrics","tag-fashion","tag-fungalmycelium","tag-textiles","supplier-chinese-academy-sciences","supplier-science-advances-journal","supplier-shenzhen-institutes-of-advanced-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179584,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179532\/revisions\/179584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179532"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=179532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}