MOST of us try to wash bacteria out of our clothes. Not so Alex Fowler. He
wants several thousand bugs to set up home inside every single fibre of a
fabric, living, breeding and eating up the dirt. Welcome to the era of
self-cleaning clothes.
Eventually, the garments in your wardrobe may be able to support a variety of
bacteria engineered to eat odour-causing chemicals and human sweat. Other
bacteria might secrete waterproof and protective coatings to extend the life of
clothing and produce antiseptic for bandages.
Ironically, textile makers have spent millions developing fibres blended
with, say, silver ions or chlorine to kill off the bugs in fabric. But
encouraging bacteria to grow on fibres turned out to be harder than Fowler had
expected. 鈥淚 thought they would wick into the fibre by capillary action, but it
didn鈥檛 turn out like that,鈥� he says. Brute force was required.
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Fowler and his team from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth,
developed a vacuum pump that could connect to the end of the hollow fibres from
the milkweed plant. Although no longer used to make clothes, the plant is still
used to make rope.
The pump sucks a few drops of agar jelly containing Escherichia coli into the
fibre. The bacteria easily formed a thriving colony and began to breed. In the
most recent tests, Fowler had no problem firing several hundred bacteria into
the fibre. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e tough little guys,鈥� says Fowler.
Fowler uses a harmless strain of E. coli genetically engineered to produce a
fluorescent protein from a jellyfish. This makes the bacterium glow as it grows,
allowing researchers to monitor its progress.
So far, the group can鈥檛 be sure how long the bacteria will survive in the
fibres. They鈥檒l probably become dormant after several weeks when their food
supply runs out, but Fowler hopes to reactivate them by soaking the milkweed
fibres in additional nutrients. So if your shirt was impregnated with a strain
of E. coli designed to feed on human sweat and the proteins that cause body
odours, you鈥檇 only have to wear it to jolt the bugs into action. For some other
strains, you might have to douse it with additional nutrients occasionally. 鈥淵ou
could end up having to feed your shirt instead of wash it,鈥� says Fowler.
Alex Lightman, chief executive officer of Charmed Technology, a
California-based fashion company that designs futuristic outfits, says the
market may not be ready for a living suit just yet, but he thinks it鈥檚 a great
idea. 鈥淚 like it, get me one,鈥� he says.
Lightman points out that most people are familiar with the idea that we have
bacteria living on us all the time anyway. 鈥淚 wear the same pair of jeans all
the time and I鈥檓 sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they
were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be
great,鈥� he says.