Nada Elkharashi, Sequoia Fischer, Catherine Euale, and Paige Perillat Piratoine participated in the 2021 Biodesign Sprint as Electric Eels. They worked on developing a self-charging skin for a speculative phone by harnessing the power of Geobacter sulfurreducens. Now Electric Eels has evolved into Electric Skin, a company developing a growable and compostable biomaterial.

Can you introduce yourself and Electric Skin?

I'm Paige, one of the co-founders of Electric Skin. We're a small startup led by four women who are crafting a revolutionary biomaterial that can generate electricity from the humidity in the air through a process called hydroelectricity. This technology has the potential to transform how we power devices since humidity is virtually everywhere around us.

My background is in geography, and during college, I took one module in synthetic biology with the Idea Translation Lab. During that time, my team and I designed something called the Vid Tattoo—a tattoo that was essentially a biofilm capable of reading your nutritional deficiencies. It was all extremely speculative, of course, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process of working with renowned biohacker Cathal Garvey and developing an idea that was potentially feasible in the future—an idea that actually exists now.

For me, that was the real starting point of my interest in synthetic biology and biodesign. It came from realizing how working with biology at the smallest levels can actually change the macro world around us. We all come from different perspectives on this project, but I would say that we are all very biophilic and interested in the impacts of the materials. Electric Skin is a continuation of that vision, bringing together biological innovation with sustainable energy solutions.

What inspired you to work on self-charging skin? Were there any aspects of your past experiences, research, or education that contributed to this project?

This question is best answered by my colleague Catherine Euale, who was already investigating the electrical and conductive properties of alginate as a biomaterial when we were grouped together during the Biodesign Challenge.

As we came together as a team of four, we naturally had to broaden our scope of ideas to find something connected with us all equally. The turning point came when we discovered an article titled 'The Mud is Electric.' This article introduced us to the incredible bacteria called Geobacter sulfurreducens, which creates proteins that generate electricity when there is sufficient humidity in the air.

Interestingly, this discovery led us back to Catherine's initial research focus, as we realized her alginate scaffolding might serve as an excellent substrate for these proteins to express their full electrical potential. This convergence of Catherine's existing research with our newfound fascination with bioelectricity ultimately became what we have been working on for years now with Electric Skin.

Were you always interested in STEM innovation? Or did designing Electric Skin push you and your work in a new direction?

Every member of our team had a unique path to biodesign. Sequoia had already been deeply involved in biology and biotech before Electric Skin. Catherine had already worked with biofabrication as part of her research with FabLab, where she was exploring innovative textile forms.

Nada, while perhaps newer to some of our project’s concepts, had already been working with biomaterials. She was very passionate about their potential use in circular processes and the 'aliveness' that they could bring to our everyday surroundings.

As for myself, I studied geography at university. But I was already passionate about biodesign and had been experimenting with microorganisms as a hobby, growing cordyceps and other fungi. I was actively seeking opportunities to work more deeply in the biology space.

That's really the beauty of the Biodesign Challenge—its interdisciplinary nature. It created the perfect opportunity for us to come together as a team with a diverse range of skills and perspectives. Despite our varied backgrounds, we all shared this common interest in how biology could transform materials, which made Electric Skin possible

What were some of the challenges you have faced during your project’s design phase? Did they push Electric Skin in a new direction?

This was quite a while ago, but there were definitely challenges. Imagine four women—complete strangers who had never formally met—coming together for a month or two-month sprint to develop a fully-fleshed speculative solution. That was inherently challenging. How do we agree on an idea? How do we work together across different time zones?

Despite these hurdles, we were fortunate to find fairly smooth alignment in our visions for the world—biophilic visions that were slightly more artistic and, I'd say, 'gooey.' We allowed ourselves to completely reimagine the materiality of objects made with bacteria or proteins at the micro level, exploring what sensory experiences they might elicit. We wanted to play with the sensory reality of what we were making.

So despite the logistical challenges, we experienced quite a lot of fun and harmony in designing Electric Skin and imagining its possibilities. We wanted people to really stretch their imagination about what might be possible. All of this ideascape is more detailed in the article by Biodesigned “A Phone, a Friend” in the Love edition.

How was your experience at the Biodesign Challenge? Were there any aspects of the program that have proven important to the way that you work?

We participated in a shorter version of the Biodesign Challenge—the sprint—but I would say it shaped our lives for the next few years. We didn't realize we would find an idea that would captivate us so completely and that we'd genuinely want to continue working on. Now, several years down the line, it's been our common 'baby' in a way. We've poured amounts of hours and energy into this project that we never initially expected, and it's become much more than just the sum of its parts.

The Biodesign Challenge gave us the opportunity to meet with like-minded people and the impulse to start and flesh out an idea. How we ran with it afterward, and the support given to us from the BDC team, was just... I don't even know how to put it into words—immeasurable. They were incredibly supportive. It's such a wonderful community to be part of, especially in such a niche yet incredibly important subject matter.

Of course, electronics wasn't our favorite subject or one that any of us expected to spend more time on than just during the challenge. But as we dug into the idea and reawoke to the realities of mounting piles of e-waste, mining for critical materials leaving gashes in the landscape, and planned obsolescence, we became deeply affected by these problems. We grew passionate about our approach—that electronics themselves could be biodesigned objects. After all, our bodies are electrical, so why can't we move toward a future where electronics are much more organic-based? Maybe proteins were genuinely a solution to these problems. This realization really shaped our direction and commitment to the project.

How did participating in the Biodesign Challenge Sprint affect your views on the field of biodesign, more generally?

I would say that the Biodesign Challenge affected my view on the field of biodesign because it showed me the range of people who could genuinely participate in this space. While in university I had been given a foot into that world, I didn't actually believe that I belonged there because I did not have a scientific background.

The Biodesign Challenge gave me personally the opportunity to gain more ownership in this space and allow myself to work in this field that I'm so passionate about, whereas before I didn't feel like I had the legitimacy. The Biodesign Challenge gave me the opportunity, then the team, and ultimately the confidence to see myself as a legitimate contributor to biodesign despite coming from a non-traditional background.

It really opened my eyes to biodesign as a truly interdisciplinary field where different perspectives are not just welcome but necessary for innovation.

You were also recently on Stars of Science. Did appearing on television change your approach to communicating the scientific and social aims of your project? How did that stage differ from Biodesign Challenge?

This is a question that my colleagues Nada and Catherine could answer more fully, as they were more directly involved in the Stars of Science adventure on the ground. But yes, it definitely changed our approach to communicating the scientific and social aims of the project.

Even though Electric Skin is a deep tech project with a wide range of applications, for TV we had to make an immediate choice of a specific application that would ground the story and help viewers relate to it. This storyline needed to be culturally relevant in Qatar, where the show is based, so we had to choose a specific approach under significant time pressure.

It was really interesting to work under such constraints to tell a compelling story about technology that we were, honestly, still actively developing. I guess it taught us that while we're artists and designers with a specific vision for the world, communicating a product that could eventually go out into the world requires a completely different type of storytelling.

We could still infuse our vision with all the artistry and passion we have, but we also had to tell the story in a way that was accessible to a huge audience—not just us, not just the Biodesign world, and not just our niche community. The Biodesign Challenge allowed for more speculative exploration, while Stars of Science demanded a more concrete, market-ready narrative.

What is next for Electric Skin?

Right now we're in a phase of introspection, hibernation, and confirmation of some findings. We're still refining key lab processes and waiting on a few interesting sources of funding, while also reconfiguring how we work together as a team.

What's next is really honing in on a specific application, as Stars of Science pushed us to do, but finding one that might actually work in the real world faster than what we proposed for the show. That means digging back into market research and identifying where the actual need is—who might have the most pressing need for Electric Skin right now.

I would also say that one of the best things we can do right now is build a community of people conducting bioelectronic research—researchers looking at different types of fungi, proteins, or bacteria that produce electricity, or those developing circuits made from these materials. All of the research happening across the world really needs to be shared and brought together to create a common guidebook or knowledge resource that others can tap into to grow this field of biological electronics.

This work is so crucial, especially in this day and age where lithium has become such a precious commodity, and we can see how resource extraction can turn very dark. Biological alternatives offer a more sustainable path forward.

What do you think the future of biodesign looks like?

Sequoia and Catherine with Electric Skin’s Biomaterial Device

I'm grateful that biodesign keeps growing as a field of practice and is reaching more and more mainstream audiences in schools of design, architecture, and business. It's so encouraging to see people with no previous knowledge of this field doing their own experiments and seeing products on the market that target the general public and grow their understanding of microorganisms.

I think we still have strides to make before people truly understand that we need to cooperate with the world of microorganisms and life in general, rather than trying to control it. But I do hope that we continue evolving a language of ethics that allows us to work in alignment with other species, and that the world of biodesign continues to serve other species as well—that it's not a relationship of extraction and domination like we've done in the past, but one of collaboration.

Of course, it's really hard sometimes to determine the ethics of what we're doing in biotech. So while I don't know exactly what the future holds, I hope we're moving in a direction of alignment and cooperation rather than extraction. I believe biodesign has the potential to fundamentally reshape our relationship with the natural world, helping us move from an extractive model to one that's regenerative.

Do you have any advice for future BDC students or teams?

From my experience with Electric Skin, I think it's important to dig into research that's happening right now and to connect directly with scientists. Don't hesitate to reach out to people doing the actual research to explore potential collaborations. I would recommend focusing on research that's not in too early a phase, so that the field of applications isn't as challenging as what we've experienced with Electric Skin.

I would also encourage teams to take risks and enjoy the process. Make sure that when you come up with your idea, you're doing a kind of 'future-proofing' exercise—thinking about all the worst things that could happen with your idea as well as all the best outcomes. Anyone crafting an idea needs to consider both the potential challenges and opportunities, the potential darkness and light held within the concept, and how it could be wielded for good or for harm.

This brings us back to the ethics of industry-scale collaboration or working with living organisms. How will your work with life look at scale? Because your romantic vision of an idea is very different from the practicality of creating an industrialized system, if that's where you're heading with it. So take time to really think about these implications—do these future-minded thought experiments and design experiments.

The biodesign process should be both visionary and responsible, pushing boundaries while remaining aware of potential consequences.

Electric Skin, BDC 2021