MOONSHOTSMaking
Blue Jeans
“Green”
Tinctorium’s new process makes indigo
dye without toxic chemicalsBYMAYA PAGE &(^67) LAUREN BARRETT
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NEWSWEEK.COM 39
in celebration of the 50th anniversary of nasa astro-
nauts landing on the moon, Newsweek is spotlighting
pioneers in science and technology, highlighting their very own
moonshots and how they hope to change the world.
Female led start-up Tinctorium is making denim a more sus-
tainable business. Co-founders Michelle Zhu and Tammy Hsu
have patented a biotechnology to create “green jeans.” Instead
of using toxic chemicals like petroleum and cyanide, Tinctorium
turns sugar into indigo blue dye, creating a cleaner Earth one
pair of jeans at a time.
What is your moonshot?
MICHELLE: Our moonshot is to change the way color is made. We
want to eliminate the use of petroleum and other toxic chemicals
in the production of indigo, the core ingredient for making jeans,
and then expand to all the dyes that are used to color the world
around us.
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Tinctorium?
TAMMY: My background is in bioengineering, so I studied how cells
work and how to make them produce useful things for humans.
When I was at John Dueber’s Lab at UC Berkeley, we used indigo
to mark interesting activity in a cell. As we were looking
into biosynthesizing indigo, we realized that there were
many sustainability implications for textile dyes.
MICHELLE: Besides my business background, my family
business was in denim, so it was a full circle journey for
me to dive back into the fashion industry.