Some of the refined products from petroleum are chemicals that make it into our modern world as polymers (imagine plastics), but the degradability of these polymers are well documented. One such synthetic polymer are super absorbent polymers (SAP). The global market of SAPs alone is $9 billion, for use in disposable personal hygiene products like […]

There’s thousands of ways that cells become unhealthy. But until 2012, there were only two ways that cells actually die. That year, the cofounder of Prothegen, Dr. Scott Dixon, discovered a new way cells die, called ferroptosis, an iron-mediated failure of antioxidant defenses. Now Dixon has partnered with Roche alum Davide Zanchi and chemist Derek […]

All  available  sunscreen  active  ingredients  absorb  through our  skin,  interfering  with  hormones  and  even  exacerbating UV damage. Meanwhile, SPFs in cosmetics,  washed down  the  drain at night,  accumulate  in  sensitive marine  environments,  where  even  the  “reef  safe”  versions threaten endangered corals and marine life. Based on groundbreaking work in protein engineering at Princeton, Soliome has […]

All over Europe, people know the best tasting seaweed comes from Ireland. Sea & Believe founder Jennifer O’Brien walked every beach in Ireland, tasting the seaweed for her alternative seafood. She found one beach where the seaweed was remarkably tastier than all others. “It just had that distinctive spray of the ocean,” said O’Brien.  But […]

Pesticides are always a compromise: if you kill the mosquitos, you end up killing the bees too. Pyrone discovered a rare natural compound that controls mosquitos and other pests not by killing them, but by temporarily stunning them. Already fast-tracked by the EPA and being tested by the USDA in Gainesville, Pyrone is now scaling […]

Plant stem cell factories, because why grow the whole plant?

Revealing the undetectable through single-shot multi-omics.