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Lucy: UTS, the Climate Change Cluster and through the Deep Green Biotech Hub are helping to unlock the future of algal biotechnology in order to provide sustainable solutions for our future. The Climate Change Cluster is an interdisciplinary research institute with expertise in algal biotechnology, engineering and informatics, which means that we’re perfectly positioned to work with a range of industry partners to develop real-world solutions and innovation adoption.

Peter: The bio-economy has to drive the future of society, because we have to have sustainable production of food, fuel. Once the population reaches 9 billion people, we cannot be using unsustainable production systems. The bio-economy is all agricultural production that brings together sustainable products to market. Now, at the moment, that could be sugarcane, that could be maize, wheat, but algae will become a part of that bio-economy that can deliver specialised products, and that’s the exciting part. Industrial biotech, pharmaceutical biotech, they’re the parts of the bio-economy that algae can really dominate. The algal bio-economy we’ve modelled to be worth probably a billion dollars by 2025. That’s going to be dominated with production through pharmaceuticals, but by 2030, we’ll have agricultural biotech growing. So, a billion dollars is a small market, but in the next 10 years, it will grow significantly.

Lucy: Our collaborations with industry can take several forms. For example, we could act as advisors, develop specific research projects to solve a problem, or also develop broad corporate sustainability practices.

Mark: Collaborating with the Deep Green Biotech Hub’s been really great, because they have lots of really smart people who can address different problems in different ways. So, one person may have part of a solution but when we work together, we can come up with something brand new. In sustainable fashion, we’re always looking to build the circular economies. The problem you find is that most of the time, the system that you use is broken. Biotechnology and algae give us a way of rebooting an entire system. As a fashion designer, it’s a very innovative thing to be working with scientists. Working with the Deep Green Biotech Hub at UTS has been really great, because we’ve been able to get access to science and technology we would never normally see or understand.

Peter: Industry is understanding that it needs to be sustainable, and it’s struggling to find the opportunities. I think algae offers that opportunity to be sustainable, and there’s a lot of interest in the space. There’s a lot of investment capital out there; come and meet us and we’ll show you what the current capacity is, we’ll understand what your business requirements are and we’ll be able to come up with a solution for you.