With all the latest developments being made in technology, you’d be forgiven for not necessarily keeping up to date with the latest announcement from the 2015 TED conference. Held in Vancouver, Canada, the conference saw Neri Oxman, an MIT professor, exhibit what has been claimed as the world’s very first “3D-printed photosynthetic wearable prototype embedded with living matter”.
The wearable piece of tech has been nicknamed “Mushtari”, which means ‘huge’ in Arabic, and to most would appear to look like a human gastrointestinal tract. This would be a fair comparison thanks to its coiled construction of 58m of 3D-printed tubes and is an assessment Oxman agrees with.
He stated: “Inspired by the human gastrointestinal tract, Mushtari hosts synthetic microorganisms – a co-culture of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and E. coli bacteria – that can fluoresce bright colours in darkness and produce sugar or biofuels when exposed to the sun. Such functions will in the near future augment the wearer by scanning our skins, repairing damaged tissue and sustaining our bodies, an experiment that has never been attempted before.”
In this way Mushtari is filled with living bacteria, which are designed to emit light, as well as produce sugars (or bio-fuel) upon exposure to light. The professor conceived Mushtari with the idea that it could replicate a human organ system and be used to “ingest biomass, absorb nutrients, and then eject waste products.”
Oxman sees the wearable tech as the first glimpse of a future where interdependent human and microorganism partnerships will enable us to reach out in space and explore other worlds. Mushtari is just one in a series (Wanderers: An Astrobiological Exploration) of wearable tech items that Oxman has created using a Stratasys Objet500 Connex3 3D production system.
Each of his wearables has been designed to be self-sustaining and Mushtari in particular can be described in a sense as like a “living spacesuit”, which means there is an increased likelihood it (and perhaps an occupant) would be able to ‘survive’ in worlds where the atmosphere is not like Earth’s.
Essentially a wearable like Mushtari could become a “living, self-sustaining shell” that can recycle waste product, as well as provide essential energy. It would therefore greatly cut down on the number of consumables that are currently needed on such journeys.
The Professor used his 3D production system with triple-jetting in order to create Mushtari’s sizeable fluid network. The internal channel diameters range in size between 1 to 25 millimetre as well as varying in transparency; from opaque to clear. Speaking at the TED conference, Oxman stated: “This (3D printing) enabled varying levels of transparency and translucency to be designed into surface areas where photosynthesis was desired.”
The clear channels of Mushtari have been designed to promote photosynthesis in the cyanobacteria (the bacteria which obtain energy via photosynthesis), which, of course, is what the wearable has been designed to hold.
Oxman added: “Channels and pockets were implemented to enhance the flow and functionality of the cells – such mechanical and optical property gradation can only be achieved using multi-material 3D printing with high spatial resolution for manufacturing.”
The creation of wearables like Mushtari gives increased momentum to the research and experimentation industry, since it means there is less need to source, use and dispose of human tissue, since synthetic technology significantly emulates the real thing.
Mushtari has surprised and impressed many with its innovativeness, something that Naomi Kaempfer, the Creative Director of Art Fashion Design at Stratasys is keenly proud of, stating: ” 3D printing Mushtari is a wonderful example of how far this collaboration [with Oxman] can bring us. Our R&D team went beyond the boundaries of our existing technology, formulating a dedicated improved support structure to allow a smooth, effective process in support of Professor Oxman’s vision.”
Mushtari is, without question, the result of a lot of determination, as well as ambition from both Oxman and Stratasys and is currently without an equal in the wearable tech field. Mushtari symbolises a sharp contrast to what has gone before it and a steep move towards biologically-oriented tech. Now we just have to wait and see what comes next…