A textile grown from fungus, not woven from fiber
Researchers have created a textile based on the fungus Cordyceps militaris that can be engineered to take on additional functions such as self-repair, water repellency, coloration and ultraviolet protection. The work, as described in the supplied source text, points toward a different model for advanced materials: fabrics that are not merely manufactured and finished, but biologically built and then tuned through living microbial components.
The result is not a conventional fabric in the usual sense. It is described as denser and less fibrous than cotton, closer to a soft non-woven sheet or a flexible, leather-like material. That distinction matters because much of the novelty here comes from structure as much as composition. Instead of spinning threads and weaving them into cloth, the researchers used the fungus itself as the construction material, allowing its biological architecture to create a continuous sheet.
For industries looking beyond petroleum-derived synthetics and chemically intensive finishing processes, that is an intriguing proposition. It suggests the possibility of materials whose core properties arise from growth and biological organization rather than from layering coatings onto inert substrates after the fact.
How the material is made
The research team, led by Ke Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, started with the fungus in the form of small spherical pellets grown in liquid culture. After washing those pellets, they placed them into molds, where the fungal material formed a sheet. The structure comes from hyphae, the thin filaments that make up fungal bodies. According to the source text, the researchers did not rely on a conventional fabric backing, polymer mesh or external scaffold. Instead, the fungal pellets themselves served as the building blocks, and the intertwined hyphae created a self-supporting material.
That scaffold-free aspect is important. Many bio-based materials still depend on synthetic supports or hybrid architectures that limit how biodegradable or biologically integrated the final product can be. In this case, the source text indicates that the fungal structure carries the material on its own, which strengthens the case that the textile is a genuine biological platform rather than a partial substitution within a conventional composite.
One practical challenge was brittleness. Fungal structures can be naturally rigid, which is not ideal for wearable material. To address that, the researchers soaked the textile in glycerol, which acts as a plasticizer and makes the sheet softer and more flexible. That step shows the balance the field still has to strike between biological novelty and usable performance. A material can be sustainable and programmable in principle, but it also has to bend, move and endure handling if it is to become relevant beyond the laboratory.
Programmable properties are the deeper story
The headline image of a dress made from living fungi is compelling, but the more consequential part of the work is the platform concept behind it. The researchers showed that the fungal base material could be modified with different microbes to change what the textile does. In other words, the cloth is not just made from biology. It can also be functionally updated through biology.
For color, the team introduced engineered yeast cells that produce orange, blue and purple pigments. That means color can be generated biologically rather than applied through standard synthetic dyes. In a conventional textile supply chain, dyeing is often one of the most chemically and water-intensive steps. A biologically colored material would not automatically solve those industrial burdens, but it does suggest an alternative pathway that merges coloration into the material platform itself.
The same logic applies to protective functions. The source text says the researchers altered the textile’s behavior by adding other fungi, including modifications that made the material repel water droplets. For ultraviolet protection, they used Aspergillus niger, a mold commonly found on fruits and vegetables. It formed a dark surface layer containing melanin pigment, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation. These examples matter because they show the textile acting less like a static commodity and more like a host for modular functions.
If this approach scales, future materials could be designed around biological task packages: one version emphasizing weather resistance, another emphasizing sun protection, another focused on appearance, and potentially others aimed at repair or environmental responsiveness. The fabric would become a platform for capabilities, not just a passive substrate.
Why self-repair and biodegradability attract attention
The source text frames the textile as capable of self-repair if damaged, and that concept is central to why living materials are drawing serious research interest. Today’s clothing and soft materials are usually trapped in a binary model: durable but synthetic, or biodegradable but limited in performance and lifespan. A living textile hints at a third option, where a material might maintain itself, adapt to its environment and still remain biodegradable at end of life.
That vision is not trivial. Self-repair in clothing could, in principle, extend product lifetimes and reduce waste, one of fashion’s most persistent environmental problems. Biodegradability matters for the same reason. Textile systems built around petroleum-based synthetics can persist long after their useful life, while many performance coatings and finishing treatments complicate disposal even further. A material grown from fungal structures and augmented with microbial components points toward a fundamentally different life cycle.
There are still practical questions the supplied text does not answer, including durability under repeated wear, long-term stability, large-scale manufacturing cost and how such a material would be maintained outside controlled conditions. But the significance of the work does not depend on immediate commercialization. Its value lies in demonstrating that living textiles can be structurally viable and functionally tunable at the same time.
From novelty garment to materials platform
It is easy to treat a fungal dress as a curiosity, especially given the cultural baggage around Cordyceps from fictional depictions such as The Last of Us. But the research points to something more serious than biomaterial theater. It suggests that future textiles could be grown from self-organizing biological matter, softened through relatively simple processing and endowed with specialized properties through carefully chosen microbial partners.
That makes the work relevant well beyond fashion. Flexible biological sheets with adjustable hydrophobicity, pigmentation and UV resistance could interest packaging, interiors, wearable technology and protective materials research. The broad idea is that biological fabrication does not need to stop at replacing one feedstock with another. It can also change the design logic of materials themselves.
For now, the fungal textile is best understood as an early but meaningful research demonstration. It shows that a garment-like material can emerge from fungal pellets without conventional scaffolding, and that this living base can be programmed with additional traits. In a field searching for credible alternatives to resource-intensive textiles, that is a substantive advance. The most important outcome may not be a single dress, but a new template for how soft materials are grown, customized and eventually discarded.
This article is based on reporting by New Scientist. Read the original article.
Originally published on newscientist.com
