Self-healing clothes grown from fungal mycelium self-dye and block UV light

By keeping fungal cells alive inside flexible sheets, scientists built living textiles that regrow damaged surfaces and harness helper microbes for colour and sun protection.

The Giant Problem

The traditional textile industry relies heavily on synthetic polymers like polyester and intensive chemical processing. Dyeing fabrics and applying protective finishes require massive volumes of water, toxic fixatives, and fluorinated compounds for liquid repellency. When discarded, these static materials take decades to break down in landfills. Engineered living materials offer a green alternative by using biological networks to assemble structures. Yet previous attempts hit a wall: bacterial biofilms remain microscale and fragile, while dense fungal mats usually require harsh thermal or chemical devitalization to achieve flexibility. Dead fungal leather cannot adapt or repair itself. Conversely, keeping cells alive often resulted in weak, brittle materials that fell apart under basic handling, failing to bridge the gap between structural utility and living functionality.

The Science

To overcome this trade-off, a team led by Chao Zhong at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology devised a low-energy fabrication strategy using Cordyceps militaris, a fungus well known in traditional medicine. Rather than growing flat mycelial mats, the team cultivated fungal spores into dense, spherical pellets packed with chitin and glucans. They moulded these living pellets into desired shapes and dried them gently at 45°C. To solve the brittleness common to raw biomass, they treated the sheets with a 10% glycerol solution. The glycerol molecules slipped between polysaccharide chains, disrupting rigid internal hydrogen bonds to make the living pellicles flexible, stretchable, and foldable without causing phase separation or killing the fungal core. Because the Cordyceps hyphae inside the fabric remain dormant yet viable, the textile responds dynamically to its environment. Depositing nutrient droplets onto specific zones causes living aerial hyphae to sprout outward, forming plush, micro-structured patterns. These raised fungal structures exhibit natural superhydrophobicity, causing water droplets and wastewater to roll right off. If the material tears, applying fresh wet pellets and nutrient water prompts the living edges to regrow across the gap, restoring roughly 89% of its original stiffness across repeated repair cycles. Rather than genetically modifying the main fungal chassis, which can be difficult to alter, the researchers used a plug-and-play approach. They integrated engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strains displaying chitin-binding surface domains. These yeast cells lock firmly onto the fungal cell walls, secreting vibrant blue, red, orange, or purple pigments directly into the matrix. Spraying the surface with melanised Aspergillus niger mould spores added a natural UV-shielding layer that absorbed radiation and scavenged free radicals.

How They Did It

The researchers optimized Cordyceps pellet formation in liquid culture at pH 8 and 24°C, then vacuum-filtered and consolidated the biomass inside custom moulds. They evaluated plasticization through molecular dynamics simulations and mechanical testing. Yeast attachment was engineered by fusing chitin-binding domains to cell-surface anchors, and functional performance was tested by assembling a prototype dress from distinct living fabric panels.

Why You Should Care

This platform proves that living textiles can combine structural durability with dynamic biological features, offering a circular alternative for fast fashion, temporary shelters and specialised outdoor gear. By offloading colour generation and UV protection to microbial partners, the process eliminates heavy metal dyes, chemical UV absorbers, and fluorinated waterproofing agents. Soil burial tests revealed that the living fungal composite breaks down completely within 41 days, returning its nutrients safely to the environment. While long-term clothing durability requires further testing, the plug-and-play architecture provides a scalable roadmap for responsive bio-materials.