A Conversation with Tammy Hsu

摘要

In the early 1880s, chemist Adolf von Baeyer devised ascheme that would revolutionize the fashion industry.For thousands of years prior, people had dyed fabricblue using powders painstakingly extracted from the leavesof indigo plants (Indigofera tinctoria). But thanks to Baeyer’sNobel Prize-winning chemical synthesis of the indigomolecule, factories around the globe now churn out some70 000 t of the iconic dye each yearmuch of it to color theglobal wardrobe staple denim.Yet the $66 billion industry is not without its faults:large-scale indigo synthesis uses a lot of energy and water.It also requires the use of toxic chemicals like formaldehyde.In recent years, a number of suppliers have triedto make textile dyeing more sustainable and simultaneouslyreplace problematic chemicals. One of the latestcompanies to pursue this goal is Tinctorium, a SanFrancisco Bay Area start-up that launched earlier this year.It is trying to produce the world’s most sustainably dyedjeans with indigo made by engineered bacteria. EstherLandhuis spoke with microbe tinkerer and Tinctoriumcofounder Tammy Hsu, whose Ph.D. research at the Universityof California, Berkeley, gave rise to the company’s coretechnology.