Buzzing Creativity: Nature's smallest Eco-engineers

Buzzing Creativity: Nature’s smallest Eco-engineers

Exploring the Transformative Role of Insects in Technology, Sustainability, and Design.

Insects, often underestimated in their significance, play critical roles in biodiversity and serve as extraordinary sources of inspiration for innovation. Their diverse behaviors, unique adaptations, and remarkable abilities have fueled the development of groundbreaking technologies across various fields, from biomimicry to food technology and breeding innovations. Today, startups worldwide are harnessing the potential of insects to address contemporary challenges and drive progress.

Insect-Led Health Tech

Oxitec, founded in 2002 as a spin-off from the University of Oxford, is a UK-based company specializing in genetically engineering mosquitoes to control diseases like malaria and dengue. By introducing a self-limiting gene that targets female mosquitoes, Oxitec has successfully reduced disease-carrying mosquito populations in various regions, including Djibouti. Additionally, the company has expanded its technology to tackle crop-damaging pests like the diamondback moth, soybean looper, and fall armyworm, offering a more targeted alternative to chemical insecticides that preserves beneficial insects like bees.

Established in 2005 and headquartered in Madrid, Spain, Algenex specializes in utilizing insects and insect cells to manufacture proteins essential for drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. The company has developed two main products: CrisBio and TopBac. CrisBio utilizes chrysalises of the cabbage looper moth Trichoplusia ni as living bioreactors to produce medicinal proteins. These insects can self-regulate temperature and oxygen levels, simplifying large-scale manufacturing. TopBac is a DNA sequence designed to enhance protein productivity and quality in insect cells. Algenex’s technology has been validated by the EMA and has produced over 200 types of medicinal proteins for human and animal use.

Insect Tech VS Climate Change

FreezeM aims to make insect farming sustainable, steady, and scalable, providing ready-to-use black soldier fly (BSF) breeding products to rearing facilities worldwide. The company is developing novel technologies that will enable the creation of stocks of ready-to-use suspended BSF neonates, corresponding to seed production in agriculture. FreezeM’s Climate Tech relevance lies in the fact that black soldier fly larvae can upcycle almost any kind of organic waste stream into high-value insect protein for animal feed and fertilizer for agriculture, contributing to waste reduction and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

Nasekomo, a Bulgarian biotechnology company founded in 2017, specializes in advancing insect bioconversion technology for sustainable protein production. Focusing on Black Soldier Flies (BSF), Nasekomo employs AI technologies, robotics, and digitalized solutions to optimize the production process. By rearing BSF, the company extracts protein, oil, and fertilizer for various industries, promoting circular economy practices and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Insect-Based Diet

In various cultures worldwide, insects have been consumed for centuries, often ground into flour or incorporated into traditional dishes. For example, in parts of Asia, insects like crickets and mealworms are commonly fried or roasted and then ground into a fine powder, which is used in cooking to add flavor and nutrition to dishes. Recently, these culinary traditions are gaining popularity globally as awareness grows about the sustainability and nutritional benefits of insect-based foods, leading to an increasing number of insect-based products available in mainstream markets. In addition to these culinary traditions, innovative startups are emerging in this field, leveraging technology to develop a wide range of insect-based products to meet the growing demand for sustainable and nutritious food options.

Sibö, founded in 2021 and headquartered in Limburg, The Netherlands, specializes in developing and supplying insect-based food ingredients and water-soluble proteins sourced from crickets and yellow mealworms. Operating under the banner of technological innovation, Sibö’s proprietary technology, Entowise, facilitates the precise separation of nutritional components like protein, fats, and cytosine from powdered insects. This advanced process holds the potential to extract vitamins such as B12 from insects. While technological processing occurs at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Limburg, the insect farming itself takes place in Costa Rica, ensuring equitable opportunities for farmers in developing nations.

Insect Inspired Design

Researchers at MIT have developed insect-scale robots inspired by fireflies, equipped with electroluminescent soft artificial muscles that emit colored light during flight. This innovation enables motion tracking and communication, potentially revolutionizing search-and-rescue missions in collapsed buildings or other hazardous environments. The team overcame technical challenges to produce multicolored and patterned light, demonstrating precise flight tracking using inexpensive smartphone cameras. Future plans include enhancing the robots’ communication capabilities and exploring how electroluminescence can improve soft artificial muscle properties.

Inspired by the Namib Desert darkling beetle, The Dew Bank is a biomimetic device designed to collect and store condensation from the air. This innovative technology mimics the beetle’s water-harvesting mechanism, providing a sustainable water source in arid environments. The Dew Bank exemplifies how insect-inspired solutions can address pressing challenges, such as water scarcity, with creativity and efficiency.

Wider commercial applications of insect-inspired design can be found in the development of new materials. Inspired by the UV-reflecting properties of spiderwebs, Glaswerke Arnold developed Ornilux Bird Protection Glass. This innovative glass features a pattern of UV-reflecting strands that are nearly invisible to humans but appear as a barrier to birds, reducing bird collisions with windows by over 75%. This technology helps protect bird populations while promoting sustainable building practices.