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FIT Biodesign Challenge Presentations
May 1, 2017 at 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
The internal FIT Biodesign Challenge final will be held this Monday, May 1, at 5:30 pm, in the Feldman Center’s Robert Lagary Board Room; posters and exhibits from the four teams will be on display across the hall in the Roberts Room.
The Biodesign Challenge offers teams of art and design students the opportunity to envision future applications of biotechnology in a competition that highlights student work. The winning teams and their professors will be invited to New York City in June 2017 for the Biodesign Summit, where they will present in front of a wide audience from the art, design, industrial, and academic communities. Their work will then go on display at venues across the country.
Judging will happen in two rounds. On May 1 at FIT, the faculty advisors, in conjunction with the our guest expert consultants who have worked with the FIT teams throughout the semester, will assess the students’ projects and pick one team to go to the Biodesign Summit in June at the MoMA. At the Biodesign Summit, a jury of experts will assess the attending teams’ projects and presentations and select the overall winners.
The four competing FIT teams are as follows:
- Jellyfish Cuir. The team is experimenting with enzymatic extraction of collagen from overpopulations of jellyfish for use as an alternative biomaterial, such as nonmammalian leather or biodegradable fishing line.
- #GrowaPair. This group is exploring the emerging world of living materials and exploiting decomposers, microbial fermentation, agricultural byproducts as fibers and a natural pigment source, while addressing material challenges (waterproofness, strength, etc.) to “grow” a pair of shoes.
- The Bioessence Bodysuit. The team is exploring wearable delivery systems of essential oil and medicinal plants to relieve symptoms of serious diseases, such as cancer. Modeling the delivery system around the human lymphatic system, the team aims to create a wearable bodysuit that can alleviate physical and emotional symptoms associated with cancer in a targeted way.
- Sanit-Airy. This student is working on the methane air filter textile/ collection system to capture methane from existing processing (such as landfill collection ,cow feeds, tanks or lagoons). The system would trap escaping methane with the assistance of fans to corral the gas toward the textile, and exploring materials that can adsorb and controllably desorb methane for use as a fuel, where the capture material itself is also a potential clean energy source.
Our volunteer expert judges are:
- James Lendemer, assistant curator, Institute of Systematic Botany, expert in lichens and lichenicolous fungi
- Julie Wolf, American Society for Microbiology, researcher and science educator
- Julia Borden, cell engineering researcher at Modern Meadows
- Sebastian Cocioba, owner and lead scientist at New York Botanics, LLC, a plant biotech R&D laboratory with a specialization in genetic engineering of novel ornamental crop species, science educator
- Nica Rabinowitz, sustainable fashion designer, textile artist and educator, founder of Fiberhouse Collectives