imagine a world where
great-great-great-grandchildren would
have to live on the sea they will have
to live under the sea because as humans
before them would have used up all the
resources so that they had to be
submerged to survive and in this what a
world no electricity so the lights will
be provided by jellyfish fish and
squeeze and maybe just generations will
wonder why didn't we think about using
this natural resources to avoid the
disaster so I invite you to open your
eyes right now look at nature and
finally there to find unique solutions
I'm not a genius so even an inventor or
even a scientists I am a designer and me
and my team have decided to use the
superpowers that nature's have to
actually grow our own lights we are
developing a biological living lighting
system which works without any need for
infrastructure or electricity and it
might sound a bit crazy or maybe a bit
brilliant also but I can assure you that
it can change the way we consume light
also the way we consume in general the
resources and the limited resources that
the planet has do fish and squid eyeball
to produce light thanks to a phenomena
called bioluminescence they carry some
genes coding for enzymes responsible for
light production and scientists have
been investigating biomedicine since the
1970s and have been using it for
biomedical uses for example at the
marker to diagnose genetic disease the
humans have been curious about body
medicines for a long time already in the
ancient times the Roman Plinius were
saying that jellyfish were glowing so
much that we could use them as torches
and later the Native American were using
Zeus little insects in the forest called
cuckoo horse to illuminate the houses
and they were even put it as insect on
their shoes so that the snakes are
living
hunting and during the Second World War
the bioluminescent plankton will help it
plans to spot their aircraft carrier so
if we have this resources why not use
the properties of fish and squid to
actually reduce the 19% of electricity
used in the world to eliminate which is
responsible for 5% of the global
greenhouse gas emissions in nature
bioluminescence exists at a bacterial
scale for example the bacteria living
inside squids and it lights to make the
shadow of the squids disappear of the
ocean floor to hide from enemies the
bacteria are life so as soon as their
life the metabolism keeps doing the
chemical reaction of light production so
the energy really comes from the inside
so to grow our lights we focusing on
this bacteria but you think directly
this natural bacteria will be a bit
difficult for two reasons
first as I just mentioned bacteria and
bioluminescence appends in nature linked
to a biological function so it will be a
bit complicated to wait for the bacteria
to need to hunt or to flirt or to hide
in order to enlighten or series and the
second reason is that juice bacterias
live and in deep oceans so they live in
very different conditions of pressure
and temperature so bringing them back
with us to Elmer's will be too
complicated to control them so what we
do to solve that problem is that we
order DNA sequences from DNA banks from
deuce marine bacteria and then introduce
the gene into the most common homeless
and characters bacteria that we have in
the labs it's a bacteria that grew on
your stomach that also grow in animal
stomach and in plants and it's called
ecoli so bacteria might seems a bit
weird that'll be disgusting but do you
know that you carry in and on you
100 billion bacteria which means ten
times more than the human cells bacteria
are really everywhere and most of the
time they are less but they're also
critical for human welfare so what we do
is that we provide the
Turia the ability to make light by
giving them the genes coding for
bioluminescence in the marine bacteria
this is called synthetic biology and
this form of synthetic biology is not
dangerous for your health and your
environments as soon as it is control
and it can really lead to game-changing
applications at first when we started
with my team we only were able to make
few seconds of light and then after one
in the lab we were able to have three
days of continuous lighting but the most
exciting part is that the possibilities
that offer synthetic biology are really
still amazing for example by modifying
them we can control where it goes on and
off we can have different colors we can
make the system less so much stronger by
creating little ecosystems inside the
system so that it's becoming more and
more itas efficient and all of that
thanks to coding DNA exactly like you
would cut the software so finally why
would it change if we didn't need
electricity to produce light anymore in
our way to do things well I think it
will change the old paradigm of flights
first it will change the way we produce
it because we won't be extracting
material but we will be growing raw
material from living organisms and
bacteria have an exponential growth
which means as a divide in half every 20
minutes so we can imagine that tomorrow
you or companies will have enough
infrastructure to grow their own light
themself then it will change the way we
buy and distribute lights we will have
to think about new business models
because it has a shorter life span but
also because it's living organisms so we
need to take care of the end of life so
why not use renting models and
subscription models what if we could
deliver you the light you need and then
when it's not working anymore
take it back recycle it and give you a
new one it who means that light from be
just a product anymore but a service
then it will change the way we use light
because the light itself it's very
different it is so much smoother but
moreover because light from be an object
anymore like a bulb but light will be a
raw material that can take any shape it
can adapt to different surfaces and
finally
it will change the way we regulates
because as you can imagine the lows have
not bits out to have a daily use of
modified bacteria so the Lego system is
not adapted at all to this new kind of
living products so where am i we use
this kind of biological lamps well back
in 2013 there were this low in France
for bidding shop artists to light the
shop windows at nights because of energy
consumption and night pollution concerns
so we just said that maybe offering them
a new alternative smarter and smoother
enlightenment for their shop fronts by
creating custom is able by unison
sticker will solve the problems but we
can go so much further imagine we can
equip entire switches by emissions in
the buildings on the shop fronts on the
urban furniture on science it will not
just reduce the use for electricity for
this fields but also change the total
ambience of the streets and therefore
reduce the light pollution and maybe we
will be able one day to see the stars
again and then if the technology goes
better and better we can imagine to
equip the 1.2 billion actually living in
the dark because they don't have access
to electricity and if we're able to
provide light where is no electricity
because it's too complicated or too
expensive we can also use it in the
countryside on parking spots on
construction sites so bioluminescence
offers many many alternative solutions
and it can have a real and huge impact
on our lives so yes there is a lot of
challenges ahead to make these
bioluminescence and evidence around the
world from changing the mindsets to
controlling the regulations and again
concerning its infrastructure concerns
but I've been working for a few years
now identifying the right people to talk
to when to work with to make this dream
a reality so maybe you and I won't have
to worry about living underwater but
what about future generations to prevent
from that I'm working with a team of 10
very young and crazy people to finally
make this elimination revolution happen
thank you