189. Infinite Threads: Recycling Athleisure Waste with Samsara’s Vanessa Vongsouthi

Vanessa so if it becomes widespread, the biggest shift is that materials no longer have an end of life, they just have a next use.

Vanessa So designers, that means you don't have to compromise.

Erum Hey, Carl. How's it going? Karl\: Things are going great, Eram. It's pretty warm everywhere. I know the East Coast is about to get a heat wave, but we've been reading about France and what's going on there. What's going on with you?

Erum Warm. It's not just warm, it's like deathly hot, Carl. Lots of warnings.

Erum Everyone stay safe, stay hydrated. ... What I'm really worried about, and we had talked about this in a previous episode, is this concept of a heat dome and like a heat or whatever you wa- wanna call it, where it's not just hot but humid, and that combination is the worst. I've experienced it, and I hope no one does, but of course they will.

Erum but yeah, it's been pretty [00:01:00] devastating in Europe and here in the northeast United States. Karl\: the numbers today, which is 1st of July, is that more than 1,000 people are dead in France, and that's a huge number. And, the heat wave is done there for now, but they're expected to get another one. Karl\: I mean, it arrived pretty early in the season. We werepretty lucky in New York. We had a heat wave early on, but it was very short-lived, but we're now at the beginning of July supposed to hit another one. and for those of you listening for the first time, this is the Grow Everything podcast, where we talk about biology as technology, and climate is very related to

Erum Yes. We say the Venn diagram between climate and biology is a circle. It's the same thing. You can't have one without the other. Karl\: Exactly.

Erum So, yeah, it's very on top of mind, and we know that there's a lot of people coming up with solutions, but of course one of the core solutions is, you gotta consume less, use less energy.

Erum That's the common ones. But then if we're gonna keep consuming and using like this, we've gotta think of [00:02:00] other ways, different infrastructure. I think in Europe it's more challenging because they don't have necessarily the, complete built infrastructure to have, AC in every home, controlled air everywhere.

Erum I think we're lucky that we have that, luxury of having AC, so we are protected if we don't stay outside for too long. but yeah, so there's a lot going on, and climate change has been causing a lot of knock-on effects to our ecosystem. You shared a story, with me about anchovies? Karl\: Yeah, so It's funny because this morning as we were getting ready to record this podcast, Bloomberg had an article about how the world has an anchovy problem. So apparently global productions of anchovies has plummeted 40%, but prices are up 80%. And the anchovy crisis was triggered by a strong El Nino weather event, which we've just barely started to have this year. Karl\: So I can only imagine that if anchovies are being affected, other fish are gonna be affected as well. And I'm sorry, I'm gonna miss my pizza with anchovy on it. [00:03:00] We'll put a link in the show notes. But, biotech, can we solve this problem?

Erum Yeah. this is also because of the huge demand on anchovies.

Erum It has high omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids and, I've seen a lot of influencers use anchovies more in their meal prep, and, really toting it as, like, a really good, food that has a lot of benefits. So I wonder if the demand also is really increasing, because of the influencers highlighting it as a superfood. Karl\: Yeah. I think it's both anchovies and sardines, and I haven't seen whether or not the sardine, stocks have been impacted. I know when I go to buy sardines at the grocery store, the prices are about the same, anywhere from $2 to $10, depending on the brand. But, I don't buy anchovies that often. Karl\: I do like them a lot. But, you also, had this question about Anthropic buying in pharmaceutical companies. What was that about? That's

Erum not my question. Oh, that was me? This was an argument that we were having. Karl\: Oh. [00:04:00]

Erum And

Erum you told me-

Erum that you're like, "Oh yeah, Anthropic's gonna buy a pharmaceutical company." And I was like, "Why would they buy the whole company?" I don't understand. I know they buy, like, AI and biotech, the whole Coefficient bio acquisition. I see those, tech plays that are industry focused, but a whole pharmaceutical company?

Erum Why? Karl\: I think when we talked about this, and I have talked about this in the past,many episodes ago. The idea is that a tech company would buy a pharmaceutical company because, and not necessarily Anthropic, it could be Alphabet, it could be Meta. And the reason I would argue they would do it is because of the data and because biological data is so rich, and these pharmaceutical companies have decades, maybe even a century of data that could be mined and could end up being very valuable. Karl\: In an ideal world, I think what one of those companies, a big tech company would do is they would just keep the data and get rid of the assets and then, spin off the assets as a nonprofit, you know, for public good. It would be a [00:05:00] good, PR play for them. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. Karl\: But I could see, I mean, we see Anthropic making deals with big pharma. I think they did a deal with Lilly. They have bought Coefficient, as you said, so they're gearing up to having enterprise-level drug discovery. but to buy a whole pharmaceutical company seems like a big deal, but on the other hand, those companies are worth so much money. Karl\: Eli Lilly just passed a trillion dollars. It's the first trillion-dollar company. But, Apple is $4 trillion. I don't see Apple buying a pharmaceutical company, but they could. But health data is super important. you were arguing against this- What's your argument against it and then let's move on.

Erum Yeah, I don't see them buying a whole pharmaceutical company, which by the way would be very expensive. I mean, I know you mentioned selling off the assets, but for what data exactly, right? the whole problem is like, historically, like the data isn't very rich and very vibrant. the smart play would be to use that money and get really good data from all the new technology, all the [00:06:00] learnings, and get fresh real-time data. Karl\: I agree with that by the way.

Erum It would be the wrong-- it would be just like the biggest misstep, but I wouldn't be surprised because sometimes people making these decisions, they just have these ideas, these antiquated ideas, and they bet the farm on it and you're like, "Why did you do that?" but you know what?

Erum You never know. Companies surprise us all the time. we talked about Midjourney going into the world of scans. Like, Amazon has gone into healthcare, and failed multiple times. but succeeded. I think they bought PillPack, for example, the company that does prescription packaging.

Erum It was, it's very good actually. when they started, I worked in the same office area as PillPack. I remember hanging out with the founders. but anyway, like you just, you never know. You never know. Maybe McDonald's would buy a pharmaceutical company. I don't know. Karl\: so McDonald's is worth almost 200 billion. $200 billion, which is not insignificant. That's nothing . But when you think about how much money, the big tech companies have compared to, [00:07:00] pharma, and even like if we talk mostly about industrial biotech, even industrial biotech, it's a rounding Karl\: error for them, I think. industrial biotech seems more likely because there's still a lot of data to be generated there. But pharma, I agree with you, but I also disagree because I think there is a lot of valuable data inside of a pharma company, but there is a lot of new good data to be had.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. So let's see. Let's see where it goes. the argument to be continued.

Erum innocent till proven guilty, right? but speaking of--

Erum What could happen is pharma companies decrease in value, and then they would be a rounding error acquisition. It won't be very expensive because there is the whole industry of CPG and nutraceuticals and people learning about food as medicine.

Erum The FDA has created a food as medicine track to help fast-track this in-between of, nutraceuticals and, supplements, and other food ingredients that have benefits that do need to be a bit more regulated, but doesn't have to have a pharmaceutical-level regulation. but [00:08:00] then we are seeing all sorts of applications c- coming out that are biotech but used for consumer applications.

Erum And I want to give a shout-out to our friend Stephanie Michelson of Gelatech, who entered into a joint development with Hugel, which is a South Korea company, to create human collagen for aesthetic applications. And I was just like, "Ooh, this is really interesting." We know people in this space.

Erum we've talked to, Alexander... Laursani of Gelator, who's also in the collagen space. And this is just wonderful to be able to use biotech to create human-like collagen and use it for all sorts of things. And aesthetics is great, and a Korean company making aesthetics, I mean, hello.

Erum Like, that whole industry is booming. What do you have to say about this, Carl? I know you've known Stephanie for quite some time and have been looking at this space. Karl\: Brewed collagen, whatever the origin is, has huge potential. Karl\: And Gelator was very successful at creating this new category. [00:09:00] And the fact is that, people don't use collagen, animal-derived collagen, for religious purposes. So, like Muslims and, the Jewish people, many of them don't use collagen because it comes from these conglomerates of animals. Karl\: It often contains pork. even marine collagen is questionable. So, being able to brew it, and what Gelatech is doing, I think is really important because it creates this new source of collagen. Karl\: so I take collagen as a supplement, and so I'm very excited to see how this, joint venture with Hugel turns out, because I think for aesthetic purposes, there's a lot of applications and, I want to have, brewed collagen on my skin as opposed to animal-based collagen.

Erum Yeah, I love how they described it in the press release that Stephanie shared with us 'cause, the w- way that they described it, it's like they're advancing novel skin booster and aesthetic applications for utilizing Gelatech's human collagen platform, while also creating opportunities for broader future applications across regenerative medicine and therapeutics, which I'm like, wow.

Erum [00:10:00] Yeah, that is going to be huge. So again, congratulations to Stephanie on this huge partnership, and we're looking forward to having her back on and talk about what it's like working in this partnership and, collaborating on this, scale-up of collagen with a company in South Korea.

Erum I'm curious. Karl\: Yeah, me too. So to transition into our interview today, I just wanna note that, we talked about France and the heat dome, but France also had some news around fast fashion. The country banned fast fashion. They were particularly targeting Shein and Temu, which are both Chinese companies that sell a lot of fast fashion. Karl\: And the fines are actually really interesting. they're gonna start fining Temu. If you're importing things from Temu, like you have to pay more for the packages. And the whole idea is they're trying to just, stop this train, if we wanna call it, of this fashion that people buy and discard. Karl\: And I know in the past, we've talked about the huge clothing pile that you find in the Atacama Desert of Chile, which was one of the most pristine environments [00:11:00] on the planet, but somehow became this dumping ground for fast fashion. And, so I'm excited for France doing this. Karl\: I'm sure other countries will follow. I know that the ban probably has a lot to do with the French in- fashion industry itself. I don't believe that the French have any fast fashion companies, but they do have a lot of very interesting companies that are not haute couture, really, expensive, fashion brands. Karl\: Iram, what's your take on the fast fashion ban?

Erum it's great that France is doing that for all their purposes. I doubt it'll come to the US. I don't really see that happening, just because it's like-- I see it happening if they're seeing Temu and Shein as a Chinese company and, the ban for political reasons. Karl\: Yeah.

Erum But not for, like, Karl\: Environmental

Erum reasons. Environmental reasons for sure not for environmental reasons. I hate to say that. I mean, at least under today's administration and the way that, the current, climate is and political climate is. I will say, though, when I was younger, I did a lot of fast fashion.

Erum I went to all of the Forever 21s. but now definitely don't do [00:12:00] that. I do if, you're seeing me, like, I do wear different clothes, but that's 'cause I, rent the clothes through Rent the Runway. I there's other services I might look into, but that has really, scratched that itch of, wanting to look a bit different, especially if you're someone who's, always out and about and on screen.

Erum I know maybe this is more for women. but I don't know. I mean, whoever wants to be fashionable, it is a such a lifesaver for me and, like, once a month, I just go on my app, look at a couple things, click, click, and I get some new clothes, but then I return them, and then they get reused.

Erum I don't know all of the environmental parameters that are being monitored for Rent the Runway. Maybe they have a huge water bill because if they wash these and everything and, like, that's really bad for the environment. So, you know, where are the trade-offs? and what actually makes sense.

Erum But there is a lot of promise for fashion and how to recycle and reuse fashion, and that is the topic of today's conversation. Karl\: So today's interview, which, Eram, you conducted, I wasn't a part of this interview because I was traveling, was with Vanessa Vongsouthi, [00:13:00] who is the research founder and head of bioengineering at Samsara Eco. Karl\: we were introduced to Vanessa by Phil Morle, who I had interviewed on episode 148, and I was really interested in the orchestration that Samsara did to both, do deals with Woolworths, which is one of the biggest retailers in Australia, and also Lululemon. Eram, do you wanna introduce, Vanessa since you did the interview?

Erum Yes. Yes. So she is the research founder and head of bioengineering at Samsara. She leads a team that's using AI to design enzymes that break down unrecyclable textiles and plastic so that they are remade infinitely, I love it, and I cannot wait for you guys to hear this episode with Vanessa of Samsara.

Erum Vanessa Vangsuethie of Samsari Eco, welcome to the Grow Everything podcast.

Vanessa Thank you so much for [00:14:00] having me, Ira. I'm super excited to be here.

Erum Yay. Oh my God, I cannot wait to deep dive into what you're doing. I know Carla and I did a little debrief in the intro here, but I would love to learn a little bit more about you.

Erum in your journey, you're the first from your family to attend university. Now you're leading bioengineering at a company that's reinventing recycling, which is incredible. So incredible. What first pulled you towards science and eventually towards solving the plastic and textile waste problem?

Vanessa that's, um, really kind, first of all.

Vanessa I think, yeah, maybe there were two reasons that I was pulled to science. The first, I think, is a really common thread with many of us in the field, and it's simply that, from a really young age, I was just completely fascinated by the natural world. I used to watch a lot of David Attenborough documentaries with my dad all the time, and that really sparked this curiosity in me.

Vanessa I wanted to understand how the natural and physical world worked at a fundamental level, and science became the way that I could explore [00:15:00] that. alongside that curiosity, there was also a strong sense of purpose. My parents uprooted their lives early in life and came to Australia as refugees, and so they didn't have the same privilege and means and access to a formal education that I have in many ways because of the life that they've built for us.

Vanessa So growing up, I was very aware that access to education was something to not take for granted, and so science became something that I didn't just find interesting but felt like one of the most meaningful ways I could use the opportunity I'd been given to learn, grow, and have a real positive impact on the world around me.

Vanessa so when I started my PhD in protein engineering at the Australian National University, I was so excited to be working at this interface of chemistry and biology, and I actually began working on engineering fluorescent biosensors that would light up in the presence of different neurotransmitters.

Vanessa And I was collaborating with neurophysiologists to see those sensors used in rat [00:16:00] brain tissue. And that was the first time I saw something I had worked on in the lab actually translate to an end user, and that was a really defining moment for me. And then from there, I started applying the same protein engineering principles to enzymes that could break down plastics, like polyethylene terephthalate or PET And it was honestly meant to be a bit of a side project during my PhD, but it quickly became something so much bigger.

Vanessa that work eventually led to the founding of Samsara Eco in 2021, and at that point, I made a decision to take a brief break from my PhD and just focus on building the technology full-time.

Erum Wow, amazing. I can certainly resonate with the immigrant parent story. Very similar situation where, education got instilled in me, was one of the reasons why I got really into the sciences, so appreciate that. And also this whole idea of a side project becoming the main project. I think a lot of people can resonate with that as well, especially when you [00:17:00] start seeing outcomes, so that's really cool.

Erum So I would say, one of the things we talk about here a lot is that biology is the ultimate manufacturing technology. And as someone that's designing enzymes to break down complex plastics and textiles, do you see biology becoming infrastructure for future industry?

Vanessa Yes, absolutely. I think biology will increasingly become part of the core infrastructure of industry, and what really excites me most is the potential to use biology to decouple chemical and material manufacturing petrochemical inputs.

Vanessa and even more so to replace those inputs with things that we currently think of as waste, so whether that's plastics, textiles, car parts, or even end-of-life batteries. I do think, though, how quickly we realize this vision and the promise of biology depends not just on the technology and scaling that itself, but also scaling the ecosystem around it.

Vanessa So bringing new bioprocesses to market is [00:18:00] inherently collaborative, and in many ways, it's a negotiation between those of us developing technology and the existing players in the value and supply chains that we need to integrate into. And so that includes upstream and downstream manufacturers, brands, and regulatory bodies that ultimately create the demand and pull that are required to bring, biological processes and technologies like ours to commercial scale.

Erum That's really exciting. I just love everything you said about collaboration across, the whole ecosystem, and I really want to talk about the commercialization and go deep into that in a minute. But before we do, could you help our listeners visualize what Samsara Eco actually does? If someone followed a piece of unrecyclable clothing through your system, what would they see happening step by step?

Vanessa Yeah. Absolutely. well, to set the scene, so today less than 1% of all the textiles we produce globally are recycled back into new textiles. And so if you think about something like [00:19:00] your favorite pair of activewear leggings, that may be made from Nylon 66, once they reach the end of their life, they very likely end up in landfill today.

Vanessa And that's not by accident, it's because the very things that make our clothing durable and comfortable and nice to wear, so think blended fabrics, dyes, and additives, are also the same things that make them incredibly hard to recycle with conventional methods. so mechanical recycling works reasonably well for clean, simple streams like PET bottles, but it really struggles with complex textiles where those components are really hard to separate.

Vanessa And so most of the materials don't make the cut for traditional recycling. And so where our process begins is by intercepting those materials before they become waste. So we take post-consumer clothing, like those leggings, as well as post-industrial waste, like offcuts from garment manufacturing. And from there, the material is shredded into smaller [00:20:00] pieces to increase the surface area, and then it goes through a pre-processing step.

Vanessa And this is where we convert the solid polymer into a soluble form that our enzymes can access much more easily. And so at that point, you're no longer following, a pair of leggings through the system, you're following a kind of polymer solution through our system. That solution then moves into our enzyme hydrolysis step, where it passes through a reactor containing our engineered enzymes, which are immobilized on a solid support.

Vanessa and so it's a catalyst bed. And as the material flows through, our enzymes get to work to break the polymer all the way down to its building blocks, known as monomers. And so for Nylon 66 in particular, those two chemical monomers that make up the polymer are adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine.

Vanessa So we can then isolate these monomers after the enzyme reactor, purify them so that they meet the [00:21:00] specifications needed to remake new polymers. and so they can be turned back into virgin equivalent materials and, spun into new threads, woven into fabrics and made into new garments. Or they can even be used to make other nylon 66 products like automotive components.

Vanessa and so the key here is that once we get back to that monomer level, those molecules are identical to what we have to extract from petrochemicals today to make polymers in the first place. And so this can really plug straight back into existing supply chains without needing to completely redesign new industrial processes, around them.

Erum Wow, that's incredible. And on your website it says infinitely recyclable or infinite recycling, which sounds incredible, and thank you for walking us through that process. It reminds me of, eating, like humans, just like they have enzymes that break down the food and then they swallow the food and it goes [00:22:00] into a reactor, their stomach, and then you have these bacteria that are breaking it down.

Erum And then you have waste that comes out, but you have these monomers that come out, and then there's more downstream processing and back into the loop. This is great.

Vanessa Yes, absolutely. That's exactly it.

Erum I love it. So let's talk about, a bit more about enzymes. And you've described designing enzymes almost like coding software.

Erum What does it actually mean to program an enzyme to break down something as complex as mixed textile waste?

Vanessa I think maybe a helpful place to start is to just appreciate the scale of the protein design challenge. So the sequence space of even a single protein, is unimaginably large. So if you take a typical protein, around 300 amino acids with 20 possible amino acids at every one of those positions, there's more sequence combinations than there are atoms in the universe.

Vanessa And so the question isn't whether a protein can exist that does [00:23:00] what you want for an industrial process, it's how you find it. And so when we talk about programming an enzyme, what we really mean is guiding a search through that really vast sequence space in a highly intentional way. at Samsara, one way we do that is by learning as much as we can from billions of years of protein evolution.

Vanessa And so a key approach we use is something known as ancestral sequence reconstruction, where we use phylogenetic models to infer or reconstruct the ancestors of modern-day sequence families. and this allows us to reconstruct proteins that sit deeper in evolutionary space, which we found are often more stable, functionally promiscuous, and therefore amenable to engineering.

Vanessa And we use these reconstructed ancestors as starting points for more design or machine learning model training, and it gives us a much more information-rich, and [00:24:00] sort of calculated or structured entry into sequence space than random searching or locally searching around naturally existing sequences.

Vanessa so what we found is that this allows us to make quite significant but still informed leaps away from what exists in nature or natural proteins today to find proteins with entirely new or improved function. And so a good example is our Nylon 6,6 enzyme So when we started this project, there were, to our knowledge, no known enzymes that were characterized to break down Nylon 66.

Vanessa and through this approach of exploring and applying machine learning to the evolutionary sequence space of proteins, that were similar to what we thought Nylon 66 hydrolases should look like, we were able to engineer what we believe was the first enzyme capable of breaking down this polymer. And it sits extraordinarily far away from any [00:25:00] known natural enzyme, to the point where you would never realistically expect to arrive there through traditional protein engineering, like rational design.

Vanessa but I should add here that the goal for us at Samsara isn't just to program or design better enzymes in isolation. Where we see the value is in designing enzymes as part of an integrated system, engineering them alongside the process conditions that they have to operate in. And so one of our strengths is really that we have chemical engineers, process chemists, and protein engineers all under one roof, so that rather than asking, "Can we program an enzyme to make it more thermostable?"

Vanessa We're asking, "Can we design an enzyme over multiple parameters that makes an entirely new industrial process scalable and cost competitive?"

Erum Wow, that's incredible. I love the idea of the ancestral, enzymes. Is that what... Is correct?

Vanessa That's right,

Erum yeah. That, and the idea that they have existed in the past, perhaps?

Vanessa Yeah.

Erum Yeah, [00:26:00] and it's, that's a lot of good storytelling right there, I have to say. Because you're saying they're stable because they have existed, which is interesting.

Vanessa Yeah, it's sort of a quirk of this statistical method we use that it does tend to generate proteins that tend to be more stable.

Vanessa and I often like to think of the analogy where, if you're trying to, judge a family by only those standing before you today, it's really hard to understand, where they came from and how they got there. But by reconstructing, everyone that existed in that family over time before then, you could really start to get a much more meaningful picture and representation of that history, and the same thing applies to proteins.

Erum that is incredible. And, you're talking about, very large data sets and this complex, enzyme space and protein space. Can you talk to us a little bit more about how you're combining AI with bioengineering to better design enzymes? How does it work? you mentioned you have a lot of experts, I'm assuming they're [00:27:00] humans, on your team, like the chemical engineers.

Erum but would love to learn a little bit more about how you work with the humans and the AI to design better enzymes for your process.

Vanessa Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I think for us, beyond what we've been speaking about, learning from evolution to try and improve protein parameters in terms of stability, activity, or designing completely new functions, increasingly we try to work backwards from, you know, a techno-economic model of a process that we, envision is going to be cost-competitive and be scalable.

Vanessa And we use combined inputs from our engineering teams, from our chemical process teams, from our partners that are telling us, what is required to be cost-competitive and scalable and, easily integratable into a supply chain, and working backwards from there to then inform [00:28:00] everything about the process design, and better inform the targets that we need to get to from the protein design perspective and the chemical process design perspective.

Vanessa And so I think it's really important to have the human in the loop there to really guide where the protein design goes. I think it's very easy to just sort of set arbitrary targets, I think, to say, you need something to be more thermostable, more active. but the techno-economic constraints are there to help us find the points of diminishing returns so that we also know, when is the right time to stop all that wet lab screening, and that protein design.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. It makes it a bit faster to go through that DBTL cycle. yeah, wonderful. So you k- kind of alluded to, how you can, recycle waste textiles and leggings that are used or athleisure clothing, and you actually recently partnered with [00:29:00] Lululemon to create the world's first enzymatically recycled Nylon 6,6 jacket.

Erum So what did that moment represent to you, not just as a scientist, but as someone trying to show that this technology can scale?

Vanessa Yeah. This was a, a huge landmark moment for us at Samsara. we could see, hold, and feel the exact same shirt, one made from virgin Nylon 6,6 and the other made from Samsara recycled Nylon 6,6.

Vanessa And I could not have picked which was which if it weren't for the labels that we had put on the garments. yeah, and I have to say, this represented the culmination of so much work from everyone at Samsara, from the technical to commercial side of the business, and to see this tangible proof point of our technology working at scale in a commercial setting was a huge milestone.

Vanessa I think it didn't just show that the technology scales. It also showed what could be achieved or can be achieved when industry players like Lululemon actually lean into the scale-up journey of new technology and act as [00:30:00] early adopters. the proof point was possible because Lululemon, with the leverage they have as a brand, could help us pull what were pilot volumes of our material through their supply chain to make these garments, and that was because they believed in the technology, and we all understood the value of being able to hold up the first enzymatically recycled Nylon 6,6 garment and really signal to the rest of the market and other brands in particular that this solution works and we have to scale it together.

Erum Yeah, I love that. And so let's talk a little bit more about your approach to commercialization, and you also alluded to this in the beginning of our conversation because, Samsara, Main Sequence we had on the podcast, Phil Murrell we interviewed and how we got to meet you, brought together some stakeholders.

Erum our understanding it's Woolworths, ANU, Lululemon, maybe some other organizations. And you brought them in the same orbit from the beginning, even before you actually had a [00:31:00] product, as you mentioned, getting everyone together and understanding that value. What does that tell us about the next wave of biotech companies and how they should be built?

Vanessa that's right. So we were founded through Main Sequence Ventures' Venture Science model. And so this brought together ANU as the research founder, Woolworths, which is one of Australia's largest supermarket retailers, as the commercial partner, our CEO, Paul Riley, as the executive founder, and Main Sequence as the venture founder.

Vanessa And so I know you've spoken on this podcast quite a bit about orchestration in biotech, and I think this model is exactly that principle applied right at the founding stage. So it's about building the ecosystem around the science and the tech from day one, rather than trying to layer it in later to really set it up for success.

Vanessa And so this approach was really critical for Samsara's journey The version of our technology that [00:32:00] existed as an academic research project in 2018 is completely different to what we have today. And that's because really early on, having, Woolworths involved really forced us to think beyond, "Can we break down plastic?"

Vanessa to, "Can we do it in a way that meets real world industrial constraints in terms of cost, feedstock variability, product quality," for example. Lululemon came in a little bit later, but their role as an industry partner was equally as important. So they really helped us validate the technology in a real industrial context.

Vanessa but more than that, they brought deep understanding of the textile value chain from the types of materials and blends we'd need to handle to the performance requirements of the end product that we just wouldn't have had the full grasp of, without a partner like them and their involvement in our technology development.

Vanessa they also opened up access, as I mentioned, to their network and supply chain, which is really difficult to navigate [00:33:00] as a young company. and all of this input fundamentally shaped how we built our Nylon 66 process from day one. And then, of course, on the venture side, having Main Sequence involved meant we had a partner who understood that this is deep tech, it's capital intensive, it takes time, and we're building at the edge of what's scientifically and technically possible a lot of that time.

Vanessa it requires what people sometimes call patient capital, but more importantly, we like to think of it as aligned capital. So investors who understand the pathway to commercialization for deep tech and are willing to build it with you. And so what this means for the next wave of biotech companies, I think, is that it's not just about having the great science, but bringing together research, industry, and the right VC in a really intentional way from the beginning so that the science is guided by real world needs.

Vanessa And I think this is how we stop great ideas from getting stuck in the [00:34:00] lab

Erum Yeah, yeah. Well said. Oh my gosh, it's so refreshing to hear you say 'cause you're out there working, you're on the ground really bringing these conversations to the table, and I love that this was, one of the first things you guys did before just spending hours of time, many dollars of capital to just figure things out yourself, having one-on-off conversations with one person.

Erum But this collaborative conversation is just incredible, and I hope that people that are listening that are on this journey of commercializing anything are taking note and making sure that they have buy-in before they really, sacrifice a lot of time and money, but let's talk a little bit more about, the current status of textile waste.

Erum one of the, guess main, things people think about when it comes to textile waste is the Atacama Desert because it has become the world's most visible dumping grounds for fast fashion. I think you can see it from space. things like tens of [00:35:00] thousands of discarded clothing in one of the most isolated and pristine ecosystems on the planet, which is the perfect image for the problem you're trying to solve.

Erum What would it actually take to put a Samsara facility at the source of waste like that, and what does a world with distributed local enzymatic recycling look like?

Vanessa that image is really powerful because it shows both the scale of the problem we're trying to solve, and I think currently how far downstream we're currently trying to deal with it.

Vanessa And so in an ideal world, I think that material never makes it there in the first place. It really requires a shift from this linear take, make, waste model to a circular one where materials are collected and really kept in circulation at their highest value. And so technologies like Samsara's can enable that, but they do rely on the right systems around them, including infrastructure for collecting and sorting.

Vanessa And so if you think about putting a Samsara facility [00:36:00] at the source of waste like that, it's technically possible, but it's not as simple as placing the plant there. You need consistent feedstock, you need pre-processing infrastructure and capability and clear pathways as well for where the outputs from the facility would go.

Vanessa And so I think it has to be integrated into how materials are already flowing. And so what we're working towards is a fleet of facilities globally that are loca- located closer to where waste is generated and where polymer production and manufacturing, take place. Instead of shipping waste long distances or sending it to these dumping grounds, you wanna convert it back into raw materials locally and feed it straight back into manufacturing.

Vanessa And so that's what I think a future with distributed enzymatic recycling looks like. You have a network of local facilities continuously turning waste into feedstock, keeping materials in circulation, and really strengthening the supply chains that [00:37:00] depend on them.

Erum Ah, I really hope that gets built sooner than later.

Erum Just, we need it. We really, really do. Yeah. I

Vanessa hope so too.

Erum Yes. And hopefully it comes sooner than later, but let's look ahead a little bit. If enzymatic recycling becomes widespread, what new possibilities might it open up for designers, manufacturers, or even consumers?

Vanessa You can keep creating materials that are continually regenerated rather than extracted. For manufacturers, I think it creates a true drop-in pathway to circularity. The outputs of processes like ours, as we've discussed, are chemically identical to what's extracted from petrochemicals today.

Vanessa And so we have a real opportunity to displace fossil inputs, at the manufacturing stage. And then for consumers, you should have the expectation, or we should all have the expectation, I should say, that what we use will be recovered and turned back into something new instead of ending up in landfill or dumping grounds.

Vanessa And so more [00:38:00] broadly, it opens up a completely different kind of supply chain. We'll no longer be relying solely on concentrated petrochemical sources. We're unlocking new distributed reservoirs of material that already exist in our local waste streams. And so it creates a system that's not just more sustainable, but more resilient and also more controlled

Erum Yeah.

Erum Wow, that is a beautiful picture of the future. I really hope that happens. I mean, right now, for clothing that I no longer wear,it's either donating it or throwing it out, and sometimes, as long as it's clean and not broken, l- likely will donate it e- even if it's out of fashion.

Erum But then I know a lot of times the people that are receiving the donated clothing, only a small portion of that is actually going to other people So then those donation hubs end up throwing them out or somehow it's reaching the Atacama Desert. And so to be able to feel more confident about throwing your clothes out because there's a dedicated [00:39:00] collection of clothing that you're, discarding and,could even help with, hopefully with the breakdown and then the processing of it if it's truly, a nice closed loop without having other materials that are mixed in.

Erum although, you can handle that, it sounds like, if it's mixed waste or just different types of garments, because garments have a lot going on, right? Besides the fibers, they have the buttons and the zippers and the dyes, of course. that's... We do have, this bio dye series that we just did, so we are talking about that in the world of textiles, but that's another problem, requires another solution, and something that Carl always says is that we need every solution everywhere all at once.

Erum So-

Vanessa Yes. ...

Erum hopefully more collaboration and partnerships to solve this problem.

Vanessa Absolutely, yeah.

Erum so now we're at the point of our interview where we do our quick-fire questions, and they tend to be a little fun, but are you ready?

Vanessa Yeah.

Erum All right. Let's go. Okay.

Erum One material you wish [00:40:00] we could recycle infinitely tomorrow?

Vanessa Tires. They're everywhere, engineered to last, very hard to recycle.

Erum So crazy, 'cause they're made of rubber, right? That's

Vanessa right.

Erum Yeah. Most of them. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Good one. I now have a rabbit hole to go down, thank you. Okay. The weirdest waste stream you'd love to tackle next?

Vanessa decommissioned renewable infrastructure, so things like wind turbines, and solar panels. A lot coming offline, and we haven't quite figured out what to do with it.

Erum Wow. Wow. That's also very poetic. it's very interesting 'cause it's, supposedly gives clean energy and does. but then what do we do with the actual machine?

Erum very interesting. Okay. A technology outside of recycling that excites you right now.

Vanessa bioprocesses for critical mineral recovery. It's recycling adjacent, but very different to the polymers we've been handling.

Erum Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of money and interest there, for sure.

Vanessa Yeah.

Erum Okay. [00:41:00] Polyester or nylon, who's the biggest villain in your lab?

Vanessa I love this question. I don't want to villainize polyester, but it has some technical quirks where nylon has been more forgiving.

Erum So interesting. So interesting. Okay. Finally, what's one everyday product you see now and think, "Biology could do that better"?

Vanessa Topical, as you mentioned. I think dyes and colorants.

Vanessa There's a lot of great work, but a lot of it is still petrochemical based.

Erum Yes. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, we'll definitely, talk more about that. Stay tuned for our bio dye series or, you know, we'll actually have been out by the time you air this. But anyway, yes, we are on that. We are on the case. but Vanessa, this has been so illuminating for me.

Erum I am, so fascinated about this recycling infinitely. It's incredible that you and your colleagues have worked on this. The orchestration story I love so much. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your experience and your ideas here on the Grow Everything podcast.

Vanessa Thank you so much for having me.

Vanessa It's been [00:42:00] great talking to you, Iram. Really appreciate it.

Karl Iram, talk to me about this interview with Vanessa. what did you think?

Erum Oh my gosh, I loved it. Too bad you weren't there, Carl. I mean, I know you wanted to speak with her because wow. you heard the episode. It was just one thing after another.

Erum Vanessa, clearly a leader in bioengineering biology. She framed biology as a future industrial infrastructure. Anytime she was talking, I'm [00:43:00] like, I love it. She should be a which of course she sees, biology not just as a tool, but a way to replace petrochemicals inputs, with waste-derived feedstocks.

Erum Waste to value, waste to value. It is a song that we sing here on the podcast because, again, we see that, waste is a man-made concept. The earth does not have waste. Everything's reused and recycled. Let's get back into that flow state. and I really loved it. I know you couldn't be there, but any key takeaways that you wanted to share? Karl\: Well, I mean, it goes back to the reason I wanted to talk to Phil, who I've known for many years from Synbio Beta. The reason I found Samsara super interesting was they really focused on orchestration, orchestrating deals early, not later. So I think from the beginning, the company was built with Main Sequence Ventures and putting these deals into place. Karl\: So that really helped shape the way they approach their technology and how that technology is built around real world [00:44:00] constraints. I think if you go online, you can actually see a picture of the facility, which is very impressive. It's a really big facility, and they did that over the course of a very short period of time. Karl\: So that was the thing that really stood out to me, that theme of orchestration early, not later

Erum Yeah, I love that. thinking about the business, thinking about go to market, getting those customers to understand what is possible and getting them involved in the be- beginning stages before you spend so much money and time developing the technology in isolation, right?

Erum And something that I really, if you are building something, customer first, go talk to them, see if they would say yes to buying what you're thinking about, maintain that relationship, then figure everything else out. That's the biggest thing I think, is one of the life lessons in business is get the money first.

Erum Get the customer first. Not the fundraising, but customers. but then on the science side, we can go into that in a, little bit, right? they're using this [00:45:00] enzymatic recycling, and she really made it feel tangible and walked us through how to take complex textile waste, so a lot going on in the Atacama Desert, as we mentioned, but how can that be broken down into monomers and then fed into existing supply chains?

Erum So what does the supply chain look like now? We're not gonna reinvent it from scratch. How do we tap into it? And that really helps things get started faster, because otherwise it's gonna take so much longer. and I really believe this is why these large companies are working with Samsara, like Lululemon, because they really shared the whole plan, right?

Erum Not just focusing on the technology, but how it can really be used to make their process efficient without changing it so much, right? don't change it too much. Karl\: Yeah, and I think that people forget that, I mean, number one, supply chains are super complex. they're so complex and we don't even really think about what it takes to go from, cotton in a field to the shirt that you're wearing. Karl\: [00:46:00] But then fashion itself, like many other things, is composed of so many items. shoes are very challenging to recycle because you've got rubber, you've got leather, you've got glues, you've got plastics, and separating those all out is very challenging. But when you talk about enzymatic recycling the way Vanessa did, you see that there is a possibility for that. Karl\: You might not be able to do it all at once, but over time, this is gonna get better and better. she also talked a lot about AI and bioengineering. We talk a lot about AI here on Grow Everything and how it is changing what we do in biotechnology. she talked about how you don't use AI in isolation, but guiding AI based on the techno-economic models and human judgment. Karl\: So I really want to hear more about those kinds of things from other companies, because I think it was very smart.

Erum Yeah, absolutely. and of course, she had her big vision, so she's looking at like materials that don't have an end of life right? It's [00:47:00] continuously being used.

Erum and then also looking at, where could there be local recycling infrastructure? And how do you keep textiles and plastics in circulation instead of just keep sending them to a landfill? And that whole philosophy, whether you're applying it to textiles or other materials,furniture or other products that we see on the shelves,how do we recycle?

Erum How do we keep them in circulation? And, this is a playbook for that. And so I encourage everyone to, stay on top of Samsara. We will certainly keep you updated on their progress. Look at other companies that are doing waste to value. We have a lot of those conversations here on the podcast.

Erum And keep thinking, of how do we make sure that we get rid of the concept of waste and we continue to do things in a circular fashion, and that's really how we can grow everything. I did it. I got the podcast title- ... in there. So,but yeah, what a wonderful conversation. I just [00:48:00] loved it.

Erum And again, sorry you couldn't be there, Carl, but,now you got to hear Vanessa talk about Samsara. Karl\: Yeah. Okay. So as we close this episode out, just a couple of reminders. If you're on LinkedIn, please like andfollow the Grow Everything page. we learned that you need to have 150 followers on there so that we can leverage the full power of that page. Karl\: Love to have you be a part of it. we mentioned that we are going to be attending World Bio Markets in Omaha, Nebraska in September. Iram and I, will both be there. You can use promo code GrowEverything for a 25% discount to attend. We're very much looking forward to being there on the ground in Omaha.

Erum Yes, absolutely. And thank you so much for tuning in to the Grow Everything Podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or just wanna share some ideas or share some tea, we really love to sip some tea, if you know what I'm talking about, please reach out to us. Our contact information is in the show notes, and don't forget to subscribe to our Substack so you can get Grow Everything delivered to your inbox every week.

Erum Let's [00:49:00] grow.