For over a century, plastics—as polymeric compounds—have relied entirely on fossil resources and the petrochemical industry.
It wasn’t until the early 21st century that a team of scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University discovered that cyanobacteria—the ancient organisms responsible for the origin of life on Earth—held the potential to revolutionize this system.
Over the course of 15 years, a completely new technological pathway—from “air” to “materials”—was fully realized in Shanghai, China.
Let’s rewind to the 2000s. While global chemical giants were charging ahead on the petroleum-based path, a research team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s School of Life Sciences set out alone on a path rarely traveled. They made a judgment that seemed almost “rebellious” at the time: the future of an economy cannot be built on a greedy reliance on fossil resources.
Thus, driven by their original conviction—“to build an independent industrial future for China through biomanufacturing”—this team resolutely embarked on the path of developing bio-based materials, despite widespread skepticism and confusion.
Over the course of more than 20 years, through persistent dedication and continuous breakthroughs, they have established a vital industrial strain library for lactic acid and polylactic acid (PLA) production, along with a comprehensive industrial chain production technology system for China. As one of the key founding forces of China’s lactic acid industry chain, the School of Life Sciences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has laid a solid technological and industrial foundation for China’s bio-manufacturing sector.
Building on cutting-edge scientific research and industrial infrastructure, SYNLIFE Technology has not settled for existing approaches but has instead posed an even more “radical” question:
Can we break free from our dependence on sugar (and arable land)? Can we “grow” materials directly from the air, just like the Earth’s earliest life forms—cyanobacteria?
SYNLIFE Technology has deeply integrated cutting-edge AI with synthetic biology to pioneer “intelligent metabolic reprogramming” technology. In 2022, its team achieved the world’s first “one-step direct synthesis of polylactic acid from carbon dioxide,” which was published as a cover article in the top-tier international journal *Green Chemistry*.
This also marks the world’s first proposal of “carbon-negative”—a completely new approach to carbon-negative manufacturing. It no longer relies on oil and coal but uses carbon dioxide itself as the starting material. This is not an improvement; it is a complete reconfiguration of the manufacturing pathway. This means that manufacturing is no longer a linear process of consumption but becomes part of the Earth’s cycle. SYNLIFE Technology believes that carbon-negative technology can not only address the issue of humanity’s sustainable survival on Earth but also play a crucial role in future space exploration and interstellar migration.
SYNLIFE Sipu Technology plans to achieve the low-cost commercialization of carbon-negative bio-based materials by 2030.
In the future, all products launched under the SYNLIFE® brand will contain “carbon-negative raw materials” derived from the carbon-negative biomanufacturing platform.
Whether it be packaging, daily necessities, textiles, home goods, or new product forms yet to be invented, all products will return to the wisdom of human survival accumulated over thousands of years.
Only when materials are born from living systems can industry truly have a sustainable future.
