154. No Trees Were Harmed: Symmetry Wood's Gabe Tavas on Growing Wood from Waste

Gabe there is this whole idea of fab cities where basically you have as many of your products as possible made locally from waste, especially.

Gabe then you have information shared globally.

Erum hey Carl, how's it going?

Karl I'm doing Grady Rum. Welcome to the Grow Everything podcast, where we talk about biology as technology. And today we're gonna kick it off by talking about daylight savings. Do we need it? What's your take,

Erum rum? I don't know. I mean, I was talking to some of my friends because we were, having the Saturday scaries for the Sunday daylight savings time day.

Erum So this was, fall back. So you're like, okay, well now it's gonna get darker later tomorrow. so we were talking about it and. You know, I thought it was because of farmers. I thought, Benjamin Franklin started it to help farmers with, you know, adjust to timing. And so they have productive workday so they can still wake up early.

Erum my friend was like, oh no, that's, that's not true. That, that was like a, that's a myth. And I was [00:01:00] like, wait, and I didn't look into it, but all I know is that. It does feel like, first it feels like wow, you have more time the day because on Sunday you wake up and you think it's, you know, seven 30, but it's actually six 30 and you're like, okay, look at me.

Erum Yeah, I'm so look at me. Um, but then I do feel. Sad. SAD, sad, seasonal affective disorder. I kind of do feel that a little bit, especially like the end of the day. I am like, wait, it's only four 30. It's dark outside already. So whether we need it or not, I mean, I could adjust, but What about you, like any thoughts on daylight saving?

Erum Should we have it, keep it?

Karl I like waking up to the sunlight, so I'd much rather have the date. Light and earlier, I guess I don't think I could handle that. Like in the Nordics where, you know, they've only got like four or five hours of daylight, or no nighttime in the summer, I don't think I could do that, but seasonal affective disorder Erum, you're not supposed to get that until like.

Karl March.

Erum Oh,

Karl oops.

Erum It got dark at four o'clock. I'm like, this is [00:02:00] horrible.

Karl Yeah, no, it, it's, just an adjustment, but, the good news is, here we are, it's early November. The days are getting shorter, but only for about six or eight more weeks. Then the days will start lengthening again.

Karl So it's all, Time is an illusion, but the way that our planet tilts towards the sun changes and we're soon to be lengthening our day.

Erum That's true. And it's, it is affecting us. 'cause we are in New York City, so that's our position on the globe. so everyone has a different experience, but here we are and we're still busy doing things.

Erum I mean, recently I've been, you know, besides working, I was like, all right, I need to do something. To enrich my life. And I have a friend who always finds like the coolest things to do in New York City, beyond just going out, hanging out with friends, restaurants, and drinks. She's like, Hey, I found this Kintsugi class.

Erum And I was like, wow. Oh yeah. So

Karl what is that? And you took the class?

Erum Yes. So. So Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with [00:03:00] gold. So instead of hiding cracks, it celebrates them, turning them into beautiful works of art.

Erum So it's rooted in this philosophy of. Wabi-Sabi and Wabi-sabi is finding perfection in imperfection and embracing transience. So really this metaphor really felt like a lot of things related to my own life work even biotech, right? fixing what's broken, not to erase the past, but to make it more whole.

Erum Beautiful and resilient. So I thought that it was a nice culmination of things that are going on and it brought it all together. the class was great. It was a little long, but it was fun being with my friends and just having conversation while we were working with our hands, working with the pottery.

Erum good times you should go.

Karl Did you have to bring a broken plate or a cup or did you break one there?

Erum We broke one there. So they had ceramics and it was like, all right, we're gonna go outside and break [00:04:00] this ceramic in like a specific way because you don't wanna shatter it. Yeah.

Erum Which I did. 'cause I didn't get that last step. 'cause they're like, all right, put it two feet above ground on a ni, on a 45 degree angle and just drop it. But I was like, I just slammed it against the ground and shattered into like 60 pieces and the guy was like, okay. I'll just break it for You're gonna another one?

Erum Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, I'll just break it for you. You're not understanding. And I was like, ah. I'm like, I wanted more. I wanted pieces, but then like the actual, like putting it together would've taken forever. 'cause there's like multiple steps to doing it.

Karl I've watched videos of them doing this on YouTube, and it does look like a pretty involved process.

Karl you know, you said the class was long. How many hours was it?

Erum It was about three hours. it was cool because, you know, they started with a guided meditation and everyone got in the head space and it was very zen.

Karl Right. And where was it?

Erum There's only one place. It could be everyone ask me like, where is this Cons?

Erum Sugi Class. Williamsburg.

Karl Oh, of course.

Erum There's like no other place Atsugi class besides Japan. [00:05:00]

Karl Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, speaking to Japan, I know we've, I've mentioned this before, but I started watching, drops of God. I had watched that on, apple TV before. It's a manga that was turned into a French Japanese production about a contest, between two people who are really into tasting wines.

Karl You've seen this and you loved it. but I just thought I'd mention it since you mentioned Japan.

Erum Yes. Oh my gosh. What a great show. It's Just cinematically, the storyline, the actual, content. Right? So, drops of God about, Wine and how precious it is and like how sommeliers have this, ability to sense.

Erum I mean, they learn it. Of course, they don't have this like superpower that no one else can have, but they learn about their senses and what each scent or flavor comes from and like have to know climate and terroir and what that all involves. And I just had an such a great appreciation just for. Any product.

Erum I mean, [00:06:00] wine is one thing, but like even fruits and vegetables, being able to get flavor from the earth, so fascinating. It's like one of those shows where if you wanna unwind. And be transported. This is the show for you. Apple TV needs to sponsor the Grab Everything podcast because we send a lot of people to their content.

Karl Yeah,

Erum it's true. But it's beautiful.

Karl Yeah, it was beautiful. Okay, so let's go from Japan to this solar system. Uh, know we've mentioned it before, but um, three I Atlas I think just disappeared, right? It's now behind the sun or in the sun's glare.

Erum so, so much. Interest around this and a lot of conflicting ideas on what it is.

Erum I mean, like, guess there's a broad scientific community that's like, oh, it's a comment. But then there are other people saying, well, it doesn't have all of the makings of a traditional comment. There's so many different things going on with it. there's this professor. Avi Loeb from Harvard, who is a professor of astronomy and he [00:07:00] runs their centers for astrophysics, and he's been identifying all these anomalies.

Erum I mean, so far he's identified nine, and it, it all revolves around the non reputational acceleration. It's almost like if you wanna call three, I Atlas a comet. Or an interstellar object, almost like it has like an engine or something. And so he identified nine anomalies and he was like, like by December, which I think it'll be closer to earth.

Karl Yeah, that's right.

Erum If it, doesn't eject a certain amount of mass, then something's going on and people identify the 10th anomaly, And then the crazy thing was, and I don't know if you saw this part, is that back in like 1970s when people were like listening to the skies, they have this radio, device that's listening to what's happening in the universe. And usually it's just, background radiation. But then there was just a crazy signal and they call it the wow signal because it was like a, a [00:08:00] very specific message and obviously not English, but it was like.

Erum like a communication. I guess it was printed out in like a basic computer and they're like, wow. And they actually wrote Wow on it.

Erum So they call it the wow signal and it came from the same direction as the three I Atlas. but. Theory, I guess you could say, or just the ideas that maybe the three I Atlas sent a signal in the seventies and it's like, all right, we're on our way and here it is. so who knows?

Erum we're all paying attention to it. I just love that it sparked everyone's imagination. And this idea that we're not alone. That's the biggest thing. Yeah. And I amm wearing my UFO sweater, so here we go. I do have a UFO like painting here my friend drew this. so I'm all about it.

Karl I'm in please, first contact. I would love to be around to experience that. But what about you? I go through phases of looking at what's going on with it. I mean, I think that what we just said, it's like now it's in the sun's glare I had mentioned that, you know, there have been scientists who [00:09:00] say, the universe is so big and interstellar objects, there's so many possibilities that we just don't know what they are.

Karl And this could just be another form of a comment, but there are so many strange things about it, plus the fact that. We had another one, another Interstellar Comet, come by the sun last year. So it's interesting that all of a sudden we're getting more of these. and I think there's actually another, interstellar object right behind three I Atlas.

Karl So I think it's something for us to just pay attention to. I just love, I'm with you. It's like I love paying attention to it and I love seeing what people are saying about it. I can't wait to really, for us to learn more.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. I'm just gotta be careful of our feeds. 'cause uh, now that I've been looking at it, I've been getting some, content that are from like, CBS news and other things, but then also just some other people, that I'm like, all right, what's real, what's not?

Erum So I think these are one of those things where it's like, all right, let's, be vigilant on. What the content is saying. But again, imagination. it's amazing.

Karl Alright, so let's bring it back to biotech [00:10:00] and congratulate our friends at Synonym who just raised a good amount of money.

Karl they announced a partnership with Brenntag, to bio manufacturer, all sorts of things. we did see Edward last week at an event. Edward has been one of the most listened to podcasts. Iam, talk a little bit about this funding.

Erum Yeah. synonym has been added. They have been creating partnerships with all sorts of companies to be able to buy and manufacture specialty chemicals Brentag being one of those partners and they created this program called Better With Bio. So if you are looking to manufacture different specialty chemicals. If this might be the opportunity for you, but we'll put it in the show notes. But they are moving, they are shaking, and we just love the fact that they're not just waiting around for someone to be like, okay, well maybe buy manufacturing is a good idea.

Erum They're helping transform the industry and we love hanging out with Edward, the CEO of Synonym, Joshua, who's also part of the team, and everyone that are part of Synonym who, they're also based here in New York City. So it [00:11:00] does make it easy to see them.

Karl Definitely. we've talked a lot about Biomanufacturing on this podcast, biomanufacturing, all sorts of things.

Karl And, today we're gonna talk about Biomanufacturing wood.

Erum Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. So I didn't even know that that was possible. I mean, this is a thing, right? Like bayou manufacturing wood, and people are like, isn't that just wood growing from the barrel growing trees? Yeah. Isn't that growing trees? No. okay, if you are tuning into the grow everything.

Erum Podcast for the first time buying manufacturing is, there's multiple ways of doing it. one way we like to talk about it is the idea of precision fermentation. So just like you brew, beer or you make yogurt, I don't know. Yeah. Or yogurt. you can brew different fibers and products. So you could take for example, all, bacterial cellulose, which is.

Erum Kombucha scoby. So kombucha, it's like this, squishy mass, which is called bacterial cellulose. [00:12:00] And you can make it into different products. And we had people on this podcast that have used bacterial cellulose to make Leather alternatives. The first person to really do that that we love and know is Suzanne Lee, who made it into a leather jacket.

Erum So she's the first person to take, um, bacterial cell to turn it into a wearable product, that we know of. Maybe someone did it in like a thousand years ago and we don't even know about it. But Suzanne is, an incredible person and she has inspired so many people. Like our guest today, Gabe AVAs.

Karl before we get into the interview, I just wanna give some context as well. Like I got really interested in this idea of growing wood without the trees a few years ago when I read an MIT tech review article with Ashley Beckwith, who we've also had on the podcast. So you can go back and listen to Ashley talk about the importance of plant culture and then, geopolitics and environmental, taking care of the environment.

Karl We've seen lumber prices, continue to grow. Lumber is very important for construction and kind of [00:13:00] given housing market pressure, tariffs. We've seen the price of lumber go up, and their supply chain issues associated with that. And then on top of that, we're losing about 10 million hectares of forest that is about the size of Iceland every year because of deforestation and because we continue to use lumber as a very important part of.

Karl Building and building in cities. it's important for us to have multiple ways to get lumber and for is just one way. And so I'm super excited to have Gabe come on and talk about this. tell our listeners Iam how we met Gabe and what is he doing before we get into the interview.

Erum Yes. So, we met Gabe at the bio culture event that was hosted at Indie Bio during Climate Week, and it was hosted by Bio Fabricate.

Erum So Suzanne, who he mentioned, runs that as well as Juniper vc. And so Gabe was in attendance and I was just, you know, as we do just talking to people and I ran him and I was like, Hey, what, brings you here? And he pulls out this block of. [00:14:00] Wood, but it looks like a really shiny block of wood.

Erum start talking to him about his process, his approach. And so not only is this a very innovative, product, but even his.

Erum Business strategy is very smart. His vision for the future, and I'll give you a little bit of background about Gabe. So Gabe is a bio designer pursuing nature based solutions to wood food, river related sustainability challenges. So that's incredible. And he'll talk more about his invention. It's called pirus, and it is the first solid wood from.

Erum Primarily bacterial nanocellulose to be specific, and he's a CEO and co-founder of his company called Symmetry Wood. So let's let Gabe talk to us and tell us more. INTERVIEW

Karl Gabe Tavas, we are so happy to have you on Grow Everything. Welcome on board.

Karl Thank you for having me. We're so interested in talking to you because you went from being a design student to a bio [00:15:00] designer and you invented this new material called Pyrus, and that journey is pretty remarkable to us.

Karl What was the turning point for you as a design student that made you go, you know what? Biology can actually replace materials, and I think it can replace wood.

Gabe Yeah, great question. There have been a couple steps in that journey that really led me down this path. First of all, before I actually started design school, just before starting college, essentially, I actually spent about seven weeks in rural Ecuador volunteering in an indigenous community for the summer.

Gabe and learned an enormous amount from them, including their connection to nature, to their local surroundings. but in addition to that, I also saw some of the sustainability challenges that they were dealing with, some of the material sustainability challenges that came up. All the plastic trash in their community had nowhere else to go but into kitchen and backyard fire pits.

Gabe So little kids as young as like seven [00:16:00] years old, were getting hit in the face with these toxic fumes. I was getting hit with them. And so I had this very visceral experience where I was like, oh my gosh, these materials that designers often use are poisoning, the most vulnerable, and even the most remote communities on our planet.

Gabe So that really hit me hard. And so I went into the college experience just with this desire to direct my career towards more sustainable materials, to not use those sorts of substrates. And so I did a lot of. Independent research outside of class at the University of Illinois. I found out about other projects that were going on, including Suzanne Lee's amazing, bacterial cellulose jackets.

Gabe when I saw that project in particular, I was, fascinated with the material. I looked at more closely, realizing that it's cellulose, very similar to the cellulose in trees. I thought, well, maybe instead making leather from it. What if we were to. You know, [00:17:00] use it, to make a new type of wood, to basically reflect that similar chemistry.

Gabe and so that led to me then doing a whole bunch of stuff, including, converting part of my local fab lab into a makeshift biomaterials laboratory and working with other students to create the first prototypes of Pirus. And ever since I've been. Working on this effort. it's gone from being a culture project to a full-blown company now based in Los Angeles.

Erum Wow, that's amazing. I can't wait to dig into that more and I bet Suzanne will be very happy to hear that. She is a listener of the pod, two-time guest friend of ours, and we actually gave, we met at the bio culture event, which was hosted by Bio Fabricate Suzanne's organization and Juniper vc. And you got to meet her, which was pretty cool.

Erum How was that experience?

Gabe Oh, that was a very exciting experience for me. I mean, that was my first time ever meeting Suzanne, so to be able to show her, my work was quite gratifying and for her to be impressed by it [00:18:00] too was, even more satisfying for me. So, that was really a. culminating moment, I'd say for me.

Erum Yeah. To hear that, Suzanne.

Karl That's kidding. Yeah.

Erum We love that. We love that. Yeah. and Suzanne has inspired many people, in the world of biodesign and bio designers share this mentality that nature already solved the problem. So what did you learn from studying how trees and cellulose form that influenced how you designed your wood product?

Erum tell us a little bit more about that.

Gabe Yeah, so there are a couple ways I could, you know, answer this question. well first off, one of the things that was really important in my upbringing was that I would spend, in Chicago a lot of time volunteering and meditating in forest preserves in the city.

Gabe So I had been very much literally immersed in trees from a young age, and so I was always looking to them for a number of aspects in my life. it comes to the technical aspects, I would say, you know, I was very much, [00:19:00] becoming aware through my research in college of those main, molecules of trees.

Gabe cellulose can make up about 50% of any given tree. the rest tends to be made of, lignin, hemi cellulose and a couple minor extractives. this can vary from species to species, but overall cellulose was like. The primary, structure for, wood, it's what gives wood essentially a lot of its strength.

Gabe what's interesting here is we've seen actually in the last few years, a lot of people making that realization and further enhancing the cellulose component. There's actually a company that you might have heard of called Invent Wood that essentially takes a tree and chemically isolates the cellulose and then compresses it to make it stronger than steel apparently.

Gabe What's cool here is with bacterial cellulose, I realize that it's pure cellulose, so it doesn't need to be isolated from the other molecules in the tree. So if you compress that bacterial [00:20:00] cellulose carefully and correctly, you can get pretty much a similarly strong material with far less hazardous chemical processing.

Gabe so that was something that I came to realize over, several months of experimentation and now I can. Describe it to you all. I basically realized that cellulose by itself, can really provide a lot of the strength that you see in trees.

Karl That's so cool. there's so much to unpack there and I know that there's a lot of interest in the world, with engineered timber and, building skyscrapers of wood.

Karl The biggest one is in Norway. I know there's a couple that are being built, in Minnesota, I believe, and where I happen to live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, there's an engineered timber townhouse. think it's like a five story, 10 unit, on Union Street, not too far from where I live. But before we get too deep into this conversation, can you help the listeners visualize what Pyrus looks like?

Karl What would somebody see or feel or even smell if they were holding a piece of this in their [00:21:00] hand?

Gabe No. Increasingly so, I have been describing Pirus as a material that has the chemistry of wood. The strength of stone and the adaptability of plastic. So if you picked up a sample, in some ways it would feel a little like marble, like it's gonna be this dark brown blackish color.

Gabe and that color is coming mainly from the tea or the tannins that, is involved with the kombucha based bacterial cellulose. when you pick it up, depending on what sample you're holding, you might notice that it has this. Very smooth, shiny surface that can happen as a result of high grit sand in.

Gabe So I believe arum, the one sample I might have shown you was like that, it can end up looking incredibly, shiny even without any varnish or oils or coatings on top of it. That is just the material itself. so you can get that kind of mirror finish. But also if you're interested, I mean there are ways to.

Gabe Have a figuring within the [00:22:00] material. So we've also had samples that might have like this really cool mix of streaks that are like white, orange to dark brown all mixing together. and it ends up looking like, well, an art piece in some ways. So, there's a lot of possibilities in the future for what this material could look like.

Gabe But description I'm giving to you all is a pretty good overall. Description, I would say.

Erum Yeah. Yep. And you have a piece with you right now

Gabe or? not right next to me. Yeah. Okay. Okay. but certainly we've had many of these prototypes now shown online. Yeah. Including most recently on CBS, where we were able to show our flooring veneer prototype, of the material.

Erum Okay. All right. Well, very cool. We'll link to that in the show notes, but yes, when I saw it I was like, is this marble? Because it had that really smooth finish and like nice coloring. and I would love to talk more about the color and how that comes about, but, there's so much good stuff here.

Erum let's continue though on the, in the world of microbes, [00:23:00] right? So you describe working with microbes and bacterial cellulose as a process that blurs design and biology. So what's it like to design with a living system that has its own pace and personality?

Gabe Well, it's a good question. I mean, overall, you're definitely talking about a process that you have to be very patient with, and be willing to embrace surprises.

Gabe you're never gonna get the same exact. of look, or maybe the exact same, properties, there's gonna be a natural variation to it. But what's cool here is that, we kind of want that by making a wood alternative, we actually are inherently embracing that variety. So we want these microbes to have a little bit of fun with how they're spinning cellulose, fibers, together.

Gabe and then we can have. Some, fun in turn, basically processing those fibers in different ways to, match whatever customer specification that we're trying to meet. So, it takes patience, but it [00:24:00] also comes with enormous, amount of possibilities.

Karl That's so cool. when you have the material, are you able to saw it like you would, I'm just curious.

Karl Or does it have to be molded in a certain way?

Gabe Well, once it's, fully, you know, made, you could certainly put it through all the standard woodworking tools. We've also put it through digital fabrication tools. So CNC machines, laser colors. things that are, a little more, involved, but those tools allow you to create, samples that, can be quite intricate.

Gabe So we've actually, in the past, laser cut jewelry, for example, we've also used it to make like guitar picks that were very functional. I also in the past was able to use the CNC machine to make some of our early fretboard prototypes, guitar fretboard prototypes. So, there's a lot of. tools that could work with us.

Gabe And, we certainly haven't finished exploring all the possibilities there.

Karl and one thing is like, okay, so this material is, extremely [00:25:00] sustainable. You're making it from waste, which I hope you'll talk about. And sustainability often focuses on reducing harm, but you're really talking about. redefining what value is.

Karl And one of the things we talk about on the podcast is sustainability is kind of table stakes. What people really care about is performance and benefit, and you're using bacteria and waste to create something that's beautiful and that has performance characteristics. But how do you think this mindset shift or could shift manufacturing as a culture,

Gabe Yeah, so. I for sure think that's where we need to go turning waste into value. That should be the future of the manufacturing economy. It's actually very integral to, this philosophy that I really picked up in my grad school program. basically there is this whole idea of fab cities where basically you have as many of your products as possible made locally from waste, especially.

Gabe then you have information shared [00:26:00] globally. So ways how to make new biomaterials or make new products, become a bit more open source. And then that way people can get more easily involved in biomaterials and biofabrication. so that's actually a vision that, I wanna certainly help promote. I think symmetry can help redefine the way wood is made.

Gabe we'd love to see wood. Coming more from urban areas directly. and we are in fact actually exploring partnerships where, for example, urban waste wood. So trees that fell over or got sick naturally. those have been turned into, you know, high-end wood products in the past. We're in conversation with guys who do that to see if maybe in the future, pirus, which is wood from food waste.

Gabe Could combine in future products with wood from tree waste. So, I certainly see a whole ecosystem here that can open up and, pyrus will just be one of several options fitting into that vision.

Erum Yeah, it's [00:27:00] amazing. Please talk a little bit more about the waste. where are you getting this waste from?

Erum You said food waste. I do know the answer 'cause we talked about this at length, but for our audience, share it because it's a very genius concept.

Gabe Right. So if anyone's, familiar with bacterial cellulose, folks will recall how, essentially, you could grow bacterial cellulose from, fruit poms or from.

Gabe beer waste or from even like biodiesel waste. So that's a fermentation that can happen with a wide variety of feedstocks. But what symmetry is doing in these very early stages is we're actually working with the largest kombucha brewery in the world. To take their bacterial cellulose waste as it is and turn it into these early versions of our material.

Gabe So there's two things happening here. Number one, we're using waste from an actual, like major manufacturer. And then secondly, we're working towards that bigger vision of producing the bacterial cellulose from [00:28:00] multiple kinds of food waste. So, that's the whole picture right there. see multiple ways to create this material.

Gabe Ultimately

Erum it's incredible because you're talking about the largest kombucha manufacturer, which means scale. So you have the amount of product to really make an impact, which is a very exciting. And, we talk about growing everything. So growing materials, instead of extracting them, which is the wood industry, you extract trees.

Erum Carl and I, before, you know, you hopped on this call oryou hopped on our podcast, we were, just talking about how much deforest stations happening and it's just so sad to see this. and we would love to know from your perspective, what are the biggest technical challenges?

Erum For philosophical hurdles and scaling an idea from the lab bench to mass production. Like where are you seeing a bit of challenge and you know, how do you overcome those?

Gabe Well, I would say some of the things that I can mention are, true of a lot of startups, but you know, we're seeing, especially now, some [00:29:00] challenges with r and d funding, biomaterial startups really need to get.

Gabe would say like a sizable amount of non-dilutive funding or r and d funding that can, help the companies reach a certain point with their technology and their production scale so that they can actually achieve revenue or achieve sales. so we've been navigating that quite a bit in recent times.

Gabe the second thing too is that, When you're pioneering a new biomaterial like this, or even like a new process manufacturing process, there's at times a lack of technical talent that you can rarely access to figure things out. so you're having to go through a live experimentation and trial and error that may have been, easier to overcome if the necessary human talent was easily accessible.

Gabe So I've had to do things where I'm learning things that are completely out of my normal design school [00:30:00] land in order to make headway on my work. I'm glad I did that. I've grown enormously as a result. but I can't help but wonder, well, maybe this could have been different. Maybe we could have moved faster.

Gabe So there's quite a bit of that comes to my mind when I'm answering this question. we need better ways to deploy funding as well as better ways to get the human talent, provided to these biomaterial startups. That's for sure.

Karl Yeah, for sure. it is a huge challenge and then timelines are a big challenge because investor timelines tend to be shorter than the amount of time it takes to actually get things done.

Karl so, you know, the wood industry is super interesting and like this is one of those things that. I feel like Iam and I are both passionate about, I'm very passionate about the forest, about engineered timber, about the use of wood products, and you know, it's an industry that has centuries of, tradition behind it.

Karl How do you convince people, especially those who are designers or in [00:31:00] construction, that a material of biomass material like pyrus isn't just an experiment, but it's something that's viable?

Gabe Yeah, great question. So. I would say the way you convince folks is number one, really look at applications that, involve some of the highest value woods.

Gabe So one of the things that we've been very, focused on with symmetry is using pyrus to replace endangered tropical hardwoods. Now, those are used for many applications, but the application we are first targeting. is related to musical instruments. so we wanna use, pyrus as, part of a, guitars for example.

Gabe now anyone who knows a thing or two about guitar manufacturing knows that there's an incredible amount of detail and craftsmanship that goes into making something like that. if you can get your material to fulfill all of the necessary requirements, that's basically signaling to everyone, like, wow, this is like.

Gabe Top [00:32:00] notch wood. and it can fulfill basically most other applications, or it certainly has like a path to fulfilling all of the other applications. so we wanna keep pursuing that route with the guitar industry in particular. and we see, you know, is already quite a bit of interest that's starting to bubble up for us.

Gabe We have a major guitar manufacturer that is looking to co-develop the material with us. And so we will ride that momentum to get our first customers in that sector, and then we can scale up later on to bigger markets like flooring, for example. which will require higher volume, but less of a, quality benchmark.

Gabe So, that'll be a different, game that we have to overcome. But we're confident that symmetry is on track to do that by going after. The high value applications first.

Erum this is so incredible because, Carl and I interview an investor who wrote a report [00:33:00] about some of the.

Erum Failures that have happened in biomanufacturing, more on the chemicals and biofuel side, but there's a lot of lessons that have been learned. it's called a graveyard report so you might wanna listen to that, but honestly, you're checking off all the boxes to do the right things strategic partnerships is part of that. And then also finding a niche. This new music industry, like going for that, looking at performance, showing that this is a material that works. yes, it comes from the world of science, but it's something that can scale and you're doing it in a smart way.

Erum You're not going directly for flooring, which gonna have too much market competition, but. This is like this genius. Right? how did you land upon musical instruments as your first application area?

Gabe Well, the credit for that idea goes entirely to my business partner, Tim Keating, who has spent over 30 years as a rainforest activist, campaigning against the use of endangered tropical hardwoods.

Gabe So he already had a. [00:34:00] Good sense of like all the possibilities as far as like our go to market strategy. And he identified this as the best fit given the volume involved and, the logic that can ensue if you're successful in that sector. So, my partner Tim has been, you know, incredibly helpful for symmetry's go to market strategy.

Erum Yeah, great job, Tim.

Karl Yeah, I mean, I think it's amazing. you know, I think there's something poetic about, creating wood, a wood substitute that doesn't involve cutting down trees. And, before we got on the call, we were talking about this deal that IKEA just did, where they're like securing I think like 300,000 acres of forest in Estonia, I believe.

Karl And I was saying, you know, it would've been so much cooler if they said, we're securing a deal with a company like symmetry. To build facilities that are gonna allow us to create a new kind of wood for our furniture. And, you know, we're still at the early stages of what this is gonna look like and we're gonna lease this [00:35:00] forest land to make sure it doesn't get chopped down.

Karl but that wasn't the news. So I'm kind of curious in terms of like, do you see the work that you guys are doing as being part of a bigger ecological story where, humans are co-creating with nature versus just exploiting nature?

Gabe Absolutely. If I were to actually dive into this a bit more, I'll start off by actually maybe offering some details about the crisis we're seeing in these forests right now.

Gabe we have about 30% of earth's tree species now at risk of extinction, in large part due to the login. And one of the things we don't often acknowledge when it comes to tropical deforestation is we have. Loggers that are willing to bulldoze like about 30 trees for every high value hardwood tree that they're targeting.

Gabe so it gets incredibly wasteful and in harmonious with nature. what symmetry is really focused on is creating materials that do promote harmony between humanity and [00:36:00] nature. And so rather than disturbing these forests that should be left intact and continue to be a resource for. I believe what is like 1.6 billion people that are directly dependent on these ecosystems.

Gabe we can instead, create even better quality material from waste in our cities, near where most people live. So, we can allow those ecosystems to flourish and allow humanity to flourish at the same time. I'm a really big believer in, continuing to support. The creativity of a lot of the artists and wood makers out there.

Gabe And I think this can be, you know, a way to allow them to continue to do that, to continue to put quality products out there without feeling guilty about the impact they're having, on some of the most biodiverse ecosystems, in the world.

Erum that's beautiful, Gabe. Well said. it's just, it is kind of devastating that, we're learning so much about the impact of the economy that we've built based on all of these. [00:37:00] Demands that we have. Whether, I mean, obviously we wanna live in homes, we want all these things, but we know that there's an impact and there isn't much change happening.

Erum But there is. Thanks to you and a lot of the people that we have on this podcast. so you're part of this new generation bridging design, entrepreneurship, science. My question is, what have you learned about communicating biodesign to investors or partners who might not yet speak biology, but know that something has to change so they don't feel guilty doing business as usual?

Gabe Right. So first off, it's always helpful to have those samples on hand, as you learned for yourself arum. I keep one in my pocket all the time, and that always is a way of like. Starting the conversation. it almost always intrigues people. and once they're intri then you can start to talk about what problem is this solve?

Gabe what are the possibilities? how has this material been piloted or prototypes so far? And then when I tell some of these people that we've [00:38:00] done on a playable guitar, and the guitar sounded great. That can get even some of the more skeptical folks, more and more intrigued. They're like, wow, you made it work in a guitar and someone was happy with that.

Gabe Okay, maybe this isn't like a pie in the sky idea after all. this goes back to what I was talking about with like the high quality products. by proving out our material through these pilots, we're gonna be able to convince just more and more people that this is really a. possibility. This material can in fact, work, even in the most demanding applications that wood is typically subjected to.

Gabe So that's how I've been able to get success so far. I'm sure I'll learn more strategies as the company grows further. I'm also open to more tips from other bio designers, but so far that's been my way of going about educating the larger, public that's out there.

Karl Yeah. That's great. I mean, and if you could fast forward 10 years, what would your dream ecosystem of [00:39:00] bio-fabricated materials look like?

Karl You mentioned this fab city, but how do you see symmetry wood, you know, evolving?

Gabe Yeah. Well, for one, I really am looking forward to when symmetry can, effectively mimic virtually any species of tree, the tropical hardwoods will always remain our top priority, but. We'd love to showcase that, technical breadth just to show a rainbow, a literal rainbow of, possibilities with our material.

Gabe more broadly, I would also say that I am looking forward to the biomaterials folks. really in encouraging, that urban based production with the waste as much as possible. I'm someone who very much subscribes to that. Local approach. and, you know, I could easily see in my like, dreamscape, essentially like, workshops, factories, design studios, where people are churning out these biomaterials in the hearts of cities.

Gabe And then [00:40:00] maybe they're surrounded by, food forests and walkable communities, that way. everyone is doing is both healthy and, super exciting and innovative at the same time. there's no reason why we can't have models like that in the future.

Erum I love that. it's aligned with a lot of the.

Erum Things that we talk about here on the podcast, it means things that Carl and I talk about. There's, storylines and sci-fi that have this vision. Not a lot of sci-fi is a little dire, but there's some out there that do paint this picture of distributed manufacturing, localized manufacturing, closed loop manufacturing in your area.

Erum and there are other, companies that are enabling one part of that, and you're a big part of that too. So. To the extent, we need to do it. We have all the pieces, we just gotta put it together. you know, so we will come down to la right? That's where you're based, but figure out where this, yep.

Erum This fab city can get started. Maybe that would be a good place. we're here in Brooklyn, so maybe we'll do a bi-coastal, because we can't, I mean, that's where we live. We gotta be where we live. We can't be, [00:41:00] you know, shipping things around, but okay. That's right. Okay. So. We are at the part of this interview where we have our quick fire questions.

Erum Okay, here we go. Are you ready, Gabe?

Gabe Ready.

Erum Okay, so wood or mycelium, what would you rather grow with besides bacteria?

Gabe This was a tough one. I have to admit. I'll go with my ceiling 'cause I like how it feeds off of waste.

Erum Yes.

Gabe nice answer.

Karl what's the most underrated natural material?

Gabe You know, I will say I think Cork could use a little more love. it has this natural water resistance and unique feel that I don't see with a lot of other biomaterials oftentimes.

Karl Yeah. Wasn't there like a cork fungus or something? Like the trees are in danger.

Karl Maybe I'm confusing it with something else.

Gabe Possibly, I'm not sure about that specific example, but I certainly love how that's one way you could use a Tree's resources without killing it.

Erum yeah. I love it. Oh, amazing. Okay, so one [00:42:00] sustainability buzzword you wish could retire.

Gabe Oh, offsetting.

Karl Okay.

Gabe Yeah. The carbon offsetting has not been getting a good, detailed reporting lately.

Karl Yep. Dream collaborator, a designer, a scientist, or a brand.

Gabe You know, I actually would love if somehow Pyrus could be tied to the land arc generator. If you're not familiar with this is a organization that's trying to make renewable energy look more beautiful and be more community oriented.

Gabe I encourage you all to look up. Examples of their projects, but I could see our wood being part of the infrastructure for some of those projects in the future.

Erum Wow. And it's called land art?

Gabe Land Art generator.

Erum Land Art generator. Okay, cool. I'm gonna check. Look that up. Okay, so finally, if you could replace one everyday product with a biodesign version, what would it be?

Gabe You know, I'd say the earbuds, like disposable earbuds. I want that to be. Made the biomaterials 'cause they're annoying me on the airplanes right now.

Erum Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Karl Well [00:43:00] she's coming on our podcast.

Erum yeah. The, founder of Gob, I don't know if you saw that specific product, but they make, um, ear IPOs outta mycelium.

Erum Oh

Gabe wait, I did see a recent Instagram post about that. I was really excited to see that, developing So. Maybe after the ear plugs, you know, they'll move on to the earbuds. that would be fantastic.

Erum Yeah.

Karl Yeah. she's also LA based.

Gabe Oh, even better. I will look to connect with her at some point. Oh

Erum yeah.

Erum We'll make the intro. That's what we do here. Yeah.

Gabe Yeah. Love it.

Erum Oh, Gabe, thank you so much for coming on sharing the amazing work that you've been doing with bacterial cellulose to protect wood and protect our forests. It's beautiful. Thank you so much.

Karl Thank you, Gabe.

Gabe Thank you for having me. Hey, this episode is sponsored by Messaging Lab. At Messaging Lab, we translate complex science and economics into compelling business narratives, and we have done so for the most successful [00:44:00] biotech forward companies across pharma, agriculture, personal care and beauty materials, and the list goes on. We are here to make sure your ideas not only get heard, but resonate with your audience. So if it's time to amplify your company's voice. Elevate your business. Visit us@messaginglab.com. Let's.

Karl That was such a good interview. Iam, what did you think about Gabe and what Gabe is doing?

Erum Gabe, he's creative. He's a visionary. I really, really loved that he brought this back to this idea of fab cities, which you and I had talked about.

Erum So when he's mentioned it, I was like, maybe, you know, you and I have hive mind. So do you recall that he had this like telepathic conversation when this was happening? And I was like, oh my gosh. Gabe is a part of our circle talking about decentralized manufacturing, community-based manufacturing.

Erum And I was like, this is our boy. This is amazing. Totally.

Karl Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm a big believer [00:45:00] that, bringing more nature into cities is a good thing, and using nature as a tool is really one of the things that biotech enables. And, hearing him using waste as is resource just fits into so much of what we talk about here on the podcast.

Karl Plus, as you mentioned in the intro, you know that inspiration by Suzanne. just amazing.

Erum Yeah. I love that he gave her the shout out and. This whole conversation with Gabe Dovetails so beautifully from our last conversation, our last episode with Veronica Breckenridge, where we did a whole conversation about her graveyard report, which talked about failures of other companies and industries to leverage by manufacturing.

Erum And one of the things she mentioned is that, when people create some of these by manufacturing companies, they're going after large markets, commodity markets, but. she contrasted it with other companies like that, manufacture goods and how they first started in niche industries.

Erum And she mentioned Apple, and Tesla, starting with very high [00:46:00] value products. The iPhone was the most expensive phone on the market when it was released. Tesla roaster was the most expensive, not most expensive car, but it's a very expensive car. When it was released and people were buying it, start bringing revenues, start bringing attention in, and so this is similar to what Gate talked about on this.

Erum Podcast. He's like, look, we're gonna start with making guitars and we're going to look at tropical Woods because a, that's what, people use to make guitars perhaps. But the most important things is tropical woods are one of the most endangered woods. I mean, because of climate, because of logging.

Erum So being able to protect them so people don't need to use those woods because they're being generated. By symmetry wood, and so I love that.

Karl Yeah. It reminded me of a couple things. One is, I probably mentioned it on the podcast. My parents are Panamanian and my grandfather, in the thirties, forties, fifties, was a young man in Panama and there was a lot of [00:47:00] tropical harm.

Karl Good to harvest. Even today, they're doing a lot of tropical hardwood harvesting in the Dion Gap, which is that section of Panama between Panama City and Columbia. There's no road between there. It's supposed to be one of the most dangerous areas in the world, but my grandfather would describe like these trees that the wood was so strong that it would break saws, like they'd be sawing through these, trees that were so strong.

Karl it couldn't even withstand metal. Like the metal would just break somehow. They would, they would bring him down. And then he talks about wood. That was like just the completely black, like the color of the wood was so dark and that stuff is, being lost. Who knows if any of those trees even exist anymore because they were, logged and turned into wood and, have been used to build buildings and, you know, other things.

Karl So hearing Gabe going after that market, I think is really smart because I think there's a lot to do there. And then it also speaks to, what I'd said at the beginning of the podcast, listening to Ashley Beckwith talk about [00:48:00] this and her own pivot from focusing on, wood production to actually plant culture.

Karl restore ecosystems and preserve biodiversity, especially when done intentionally. So I think that they fit very nicely and they also fit really nicely with, you know what Veronica said about going after that niche market? To prove that you can scale and then going after mass markets.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the Blackwood and one of the things that we didn't talk about, on this episode, and Gabe, if you're listening, we'd love for you to talk about it and we can, uh, mention your response on, in our, future episodes, but this idea of color.

Erum So when he, um, showed me the, symmetry void, product, it had this like very dark brown color and like these, you know, unique streaks going through it, almost like marble, but we didn't talk about how he, gets the color.

Erum Into this product. Right? Is it from the bacteria itself or is it an additive coloring process? And that's [00:49:00] really interesting because, you know, you talked about that blackwood that was grown in South America that your, grandfather talked about that would be a really cool. product to just have, I'm gonna say quote unquote naturally, like just dark wood versus having to paint it.

Erum 'cause paint has all sorts of problems, you know, as well. besides being an additional step. and so Coloring the pirus. I would love to learn a little bit more about that. So Gabe, let us know. Let us know how that works.

Karl Yeah. And the other thing that we didn't even get into is the kind of the rise of mass timber, which I know we've talked about in the past.

Karl Mass timber, is this idea of using wood to build skyscrapers and to really, uh, prefabricate buildings from wood before you build them on site. And there is, so that means that there's growing demand for wood, around the world. And, you know, if we're gonna build more buildings from wood, which probably are more healthy than, you know, stucco and, you know, all the stuff we use to build buildings, it means that there's gonna be more pressure on forest, more [00:50:00] pressure on logging.

Karl And so solutions like Gabe's and the things that Ashley are talking about for this ability to 3D print would. From Nanocellulose. I think all those applications are coming and I think they're fascinating. I'm super excited for 'em.

Erum yeah. The, the products here, the manufacturings here, they're starting, so they're gonna start with their niche industries and then, you know, hopefully scale up to be able to replace the need for timber to make houses or flooring, I think is the next one.

Erum Before making houses. but it's going to be a very beautiful future. I think we just, the two challenges Gabe mentioned for, him or for symmetry Wood is, funding and talent. So, let's help him out, right? So we know that's a lot of people here looking for careers in Bioeconomy or Biomanufacturing, and we know investors are listening.

Erum So what can we do to help Usher in this. Future sooner. Right. So hopefully, those that are listening, you can reach out to Gabe, reach out to Symmetry [00:51:00] Wood and see how you can help. ' this is what this is about. Right? This whole podcast is a, a whole, rallying cry. For by manufacturing.

Erum So let's, let's grow. Let's grow. Yeah. All right.

Karl So I think that's a great note to end the podcast on.

Erum Awesome. Yes. And please like and subscribe if you're seeing us on YouTube or on Spotify. Hello. Nice to see you. and yeah, police, you know, we're all over the place. Substack, we always love hearing from our, Listeners, our audience, let us know what you wanna talk about, recommend guests. We're here for you. So thanks for listening to the pod.

Karl Thank you..