2019
Research & Development
Marcos Igreja headshot
Clean50 Award Logo

Marcos Igreja

Director of Bioresource Engineering, Genecis Bioindustries
Polyhydroxyalkanoates  (PHAs) are polyesters produced in nature by microorganisms like bacteria.  For bacteria, PHAs serve as both a source of energy and as a carbon store. These plastics used on their own are incredibly biodegradable. When combined with the normal “live-forever” plastics derived from fossil-fuels, PHAs also makes the new co-polymer more degradable. The biggest obstacle to the wide-spread adoption of PHAs is cost. Luna and her brilliant Genecis team have created a revolutionary technology that significantly reduces this barrier: By using special recipes of highly efficient bacteria, the cost of production is reduced by over 40%.  Now scaling up!

Marcos is the Director of Bioresource Engineering