The team developed a way to cultivate this renewable resource using a process that draws CO2 from the air. The Synergia process relies not on spirulina, but on different natural populations of cyanobacteria originally found in specific British Columbia lakes.
In 2017, Vadlamani noticed that, “Hey, we’re also able to produce phycocyanin.” He knew blue was big business, so the group nimbly “shifted focus, incorporated a company, entered Creative Destruction Lab Rockies accelerator program and concentrated completely on commercialization.” The company didn’t start out in 2013 looking for a way to make a better blue rather, the team was hunting for ways to capture carbon and produce bioenergy using algae. From the first blue glass in ancient Egypt and the ground lapis lazuli in Vermeer’s paintings, to trade wars fought over indigo in the 1500s, fortunes have been built on blue. Marc Strous, PhD (directors) and business partners and collaborators from the community. Synergia Biotech consists of a half-dozen UCalgary professors and research associates from the faculties of science and engineering including Dr. That extraction calls for an energy-inefficient process - or it did, until UCalgary’s Synergia Biotech came along. Indeed, demand is high - as in US$120 million per year - for blue food pigment, or phycocyanin as the stuff extracted from spirulina, a blue-green algae or cyanobacteria, is called. (It’s fun to ponder what Carlin would have had to say about Instagram.) Soothing and eye-catching, blue also looks really good on Instagram. Where is the blue food? We want the blue food! Probably bestows immortality! They’re keeping it from us!”Ī few decades later, here we are enjoying blue Popsicles, savouring blue frosting and fueling ourselves with blue sports drinks.
Case in point: an exciting discovery by UCalgary researchers addresses Carlin’s complaint that, “I can’t find blue food!” Not only do we now have all kinds of blue food but, thanks to a UCalgary-rooted clean-tech company, we can make it while pulling CO2 from the air.įor those who haven’t checked into Carlin’s backlist lately, it was on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975 that he complained: “I can’t find the flavour of blue! I mean, green is lime yellow is lemon orange is orange red is cherry what’s blue? There’s no blue!. But events are catching up with some of those old classics. It’s been more than eight years since comedian George Carlin left this planet and, of all the vintage comedy routines YouTube provides, his are still among the best.
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