Prototypes for Humanity showcases solutions-based projects from universities around the world – in Dubai

Flash cars, flashier skyscrapers, strict public behaviour laws and soaring temperatures. Social media, reality television shows and news reports on expat extravagances and holidays gone wrong ensure that Dubai has many images. Being a hub for international research probably isn’t one that springs to most people’s minds.

That may be about to change though. A number of leading international institutions have established bases in the United Arab Emirates in recent years, including the University of Birmingham, a founder member of The Conversation UK, which has a campus in Dubai.

And for more than a decade now the city has provided a showcase for international design and innovation research in the form of a project that began life as essentially a degree show but that is now morphing into a community of PhD candidates and their professors seeking to take ideas that can deliver tangible benefits to cities, the planet and human health out of the lab and into the marketplace.

Prototypes for Humanity, part of Dubai Future Solutions, presented 100 projects offering tangible ways to tackle key challenges facing societies. More than 2,700 entries were submitted from 800 universities around the world. Many of those researchers chosen to exhibit at the Emirates Towers event from November 19-22 came The Conversation’s member institutions.

One of the first of those that caught my eye was a system, under development by Alexander Burton at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, to retrofit petrol vehicles so they can operate as hybrids. Given the apparent complexities of production line hybrid cars it struck me as outlandish. But showing me his display and some of the kit, Alexander explained how he and his dad had come up with the concept of transforming their Toyota.

The team hope that retro-fit hybrids will take off in rural and suburban areas and could find an export market. The model, says Alexander, particularly lends itself to pick-up trucks where there’s plenty of space to bolt on the supplementary electrical units and they can offer significant savings.

Just a few feet away was another electric vehicle innovation, this time from the University of Southampton in southern England. Tamara Ivancova has developed what is being described as a “four-wheeled e-bike” – think, enclosed narrow car that can run in a cycle lane. Tamara has used experience gained working in Forumla 1 (from the age of 15) and at university to develop specialist recycled materials and a full scale mock up of the product is in a garage in Southampton.

Alongside projects developing new materials and energy innovations, data, agriculture, environment and health were key themes among the 100 selected to exhibit. I should add that my own travel and accommodation was provided by Prototypes.

In one of the adjacent offices, Tadeu Baldani Caravieri, Director of Prototypes for Humanity, elaborated on the team’s vision of the project “as the world’s most comprehensive convener of academic innovation”.

“The diversity, depth and range of applications received – covering all fields of sciences, technology and creative studies – make the initiative reflect the current global state of innovation and how complex global issues are manifested, and addressed, by top academic talent.

“Together, we’re raising awareness of academia’s essential role in driving progress and collaboratively developing solutions that create tangible impacts on people’s lives.”

Led by the Art Dubai Group, the Prototypes for Humanity initiative is supported by the government of Dubai and seeks to place the city at the heart of such academic research-driven solutions.

For the first time, this year’s exhibition also provided an opportunity for five projects’s students and professors to secure a share of US$100,000 in investment funding. Among those was Bill Yen, a PhD candidate at Stanford University in California who has developed a fuel cell that generates renewable energy from microbes breaking down organic carbon in soil.

Another securing investment was Xinpeng Hong, a final year PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, for a machine learning project that speeds up computation and lowers energy use required for such technology. The work has potential applications in healthcare, transport and finance sectors.

For The Conversation, it was an introduction to some projects that I expect you’ll hear and read more about in our content in the months to come. While we rightly assess and explain events as they happen, delivering information about new research, and particularly innovative solutions that are born in the labs, studios and seminars of our partner universities is also a central element of our mission as we strive to be the comprehensive conveyor of academic knowledge.

Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya

There’s been an exciting new discovery in the fight against plastic pollution: mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene. They join the ranks of a small group of insects that have been found to be capable of breaking the polluting plastic down, though this is the first time that an insect species native to Africa has been found to do this.

Polystyrene, commonly known as styrofoam, is a plastic material that’s widely used in food, electronic and industrial packaging. It’s difficult to break down and therefore durable. Traditional recycling methods – like chemical and thermal processing – are expensive and can create pollutants. This was one of the reasons we wanted to explore biological methods of managing this persistent waste.

I am part of a team of scientists from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology who have found that the larvae of the Kenyan lesser mealworm can chew through polystyrene and host bacteria in their guts that help break down the material.

The lesser mealworm is the larval form of the Alphitobius darkling beetle. The larval period lasts between 8 and 10 weeks. The lesser mealworm are mostly found in poultry rearing houses which are warm and can offer a constant food supply – ideal conditions for them to grow and reproduce.

Though lesser mealworms are thought to have originated in Africa, they can be found in many countries around the world. The species we identified in our study, however, could be a sub-species of the Alphitobius genus. We are conducting further investigation to confirm this possibility.

Our study also examined the insect’s gut bacteria. We wanted to identify the bacterial communities that may support the plastic degradation process.

Plastic pollution levels are at critically high levels in some African countries. Though plastic waste is a major environmental issue globally, Africa faces a particular challenge due to high importation of plastic products, low re-use and a lack of recycling of these products.

By studying these natural “plastic-eaters”, we hope to create new tools that help get rid of plastic waste faster and more efficiently. Instead of releasing a huge number of these insects into trash sites (which isn’t practical), we can use the microbes and enzymes they produce in factories, landfills and cleanup sites. This means plastic waste can be tackled in a way that’s easier to manage at a large scale.

Key findings

We carried out a trial, lasting over a month. The larvae were fed either polystyrene alone, bran (a nutrient-dense food) alone, or a combination of polystyrene and bran.

We found that mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet survived at higher rates than those fed on polystyrene alone. We also found that they consumed polystyrene more efficiently than those on a polystyrene-only diet. This highlights the benefits of ensuring the insects still had a nutrient-dense diet.

While the polystyrene-only diet did support the mealworms’ survival, they didn’t have enough nutrition to make them efficient in breaking down polystyrene. This finding reinforced the importance of a balanced diet for the insects to optimally consume and degrade plastic. The insects could be eating the polystyrene because it’s mostly made up of carbon and hydrogen, which may provide them an energy source.

The mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet were able to break down approximately 11.7% of the total polystyrene over the trial period.

Gut bacteria

The analysis of the mealworm gut revealed significant shifts in the bacterial composition depending on the diet. Understanding these shifts in bacterial composition is crucial because it reveals which microbes are actively involved in breaking down plastic. This will help us to isolate the specific bacteria and enzymes that can be harnessed for plastic degradation efforts.

The guts of polystyrene-fed larvae were found to contain higher levels of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, bacteria that can adapt to various environments and break down a wide range of complex substances. Bacteria such as Kluyvera, Lactococcus, Citrobacter and Klebsiella were also particularly abundant and are known to produce enzymes capable of digesting synthetic plastics. The bacteria won’t be harmful to the insect or to the environment when used at scale.

The abundance of bacteria indicates that they play a crucial role in breaking down the plastic. This may mean that mealworms may not naturally have the ability to eat plastic. Instead, when they start eating plastic, the bacteria in their guts might change to help break it down. Thus, the microbes in the mealworms’ stomachs can adjust to unusual diets, like plastic.

These findings support our hypothesis that the gut of certain insects can enable plastic degradation. This is likely because the bacteria in their gut can produce enzymes that break down plastic polymers.

This raises the possibility of isolating these bacteria, and the enzymes produced, to create microbial solutions that will address plastic waste on a larger scale.

What’s next

Certain insect species, such as yellow mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) and superworms (Zophobas morio), have already demonstrated the ability to consume plastics. They’re able to break down materials like polystyrene with the help of bacteria in their gut.

Our research is unique because it focuses on insect species native to Africa, which have not been extensively studied in the context of plastic degradation.

This regional focus is important because the insects and environmental conditions in Africa may differ from those in other parts of the world, potentially offering new insights and practical solutions for plastic pollution in African settings.

The Kenyan lesser mealworm’s ability to consume polystyrene suggests that it could play a role in natural waste reduction, especially for types of plastic that are resistant to conventional recycling methods.

Future studies could focus on isolating and identifying the specific bacterial strains involved in polystyrene degradation and examining their enzymes.

We hope to figure out if the enzymes can be produced at scale for recycling waste.

Additionally, we may explore other types of plastics to test the versatility of this insect for broader waste management applications.

Scaling up the use of the lesser mealworms for plastic degradation would also require strategies for ensuring insect health over prolonged plastic consumption, as well as evaluating the safety of resulting insect biomass for animal feeds.

This research was funded by: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Novo nordisk fonden (Refugee Insect Production for Food and Feed (RefIPro), the Rockefeller Foundation; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; IKEA Foundation; European Commission, the Curt Bergfors Foundation Food Planet Prize Award; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR); Government of Norway; German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); and Government of the Republic of Kenya. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the donors.

Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya

There’s been an exciting new discovery in the fight against plastic pollution: mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene. They join the ranks of a small group of insects that have been found to be capable of breaking the polluting plastic down, though this is the first time that an insect species native to Africa has been found to do this.

Polystyrene, commonly known as styrofoam, is a plastic material that’s widely used in food, electronic and industrial packaging. It’s difficult to break down and therefore durable. Traditional recycling methods – like chemical and thermal processing – are expensive and can create pollutants. This was one of the reasons we wanted to explore biological methods of managing this persistent waste.

I am part of a team of scientists from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology who have found that the larvae of the Kenyan lesser mealworm can chew through polystyrene and host bacteria in their guts that help break down the material.

The lesser mealworm is the larval form of the Alphitobius darkling beetle. The larval period lasts between 8 and 10 weeks. The lesser mealworm are mostly found in poultry rearing houses which are warm and can offer a constant food supply – ideal conditions for them to grow and reproduce.

Though lesser mealworms are thought to have originated in Africa, they can be found in many countries around the world. The species we identified in our study, however, could be a sub-species of the Alphitobius genus. We are conducting further investigation to confirm this possibility.

Our study also examined the insect’s gut bacteria. We wanted to identify the bacterial communities that may support the plastic degradation process.

Plastic pollution levels are at critically high levels in some African countries. Though plastic waste is a major environmental issue globally, Africa faces a particular challenge due to high importation of plastic products, low re-use and a lack of recycling of these products.

By studying these natural “plastic-eaters”, we hope to create new tools that help get rid of plastic waste faster and more efficiently. Instead of releasing a huge number of these insects into trash sites (which isn’t practical), we can use the microbes and enzymes they produce in factories, landfills and cleanup sites. This means plastic waste can be tackled in a way that’s easier to manage at a large scale.

Key findings

We carried out a trial, lasting over a month. The larvae were fed either polystyrene alone, bran (a nutrient-dense food) alone, or a combination of polystyrene and bran.

We found that mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet survived at higher rates than those fed on polystyrene alone. We also found that they consumed polystyrene more efficiently than those on a polystyrene-only diet. This highlights the benefits of ensuring the insects still had a nutrient-dense diet.

While the polystyrene-only diet did support the mealworms’ survival, they didn’t have enough nutrition to make them efficient in breaking down polystyrene. This finding reinforced the importance of a balanced diet for the insects to optimally consume and degrade plastic. The insects could be eating the polystyrene because it’s mostly made up of carbon and hydrogen, which may provide them an energy source.

The mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet were able to break down approximately 11.7% of the total polystyrene over the trial period.

Gut bacteria

The analysis of the mealworm gut revealed significant shifts in the bacterial composition depending on the diet. Understanding these shifts in bacterial composition is crucial because it reveals which microbes are actively involved in breaking down plastic. This will help us to isolate the specific bacteria and enzymes that can be harnessed for plastic degradation efforts.

The guts of polystyrene-fed larvae were found to contain higher levels of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, bacteria that can adapt to various environments and break down a wide range of complex substances. Bacteria such as Kluyvera, Lactococcus, Citrobacter and Klebsiella were also particularly abundant and are known to produce enzymes capable of digesting synthetic plastics. The bacteria won’t be harmful to the insect or to the environment when used at scale.

The abundance of bacteria indicates that they play a crucial role in breaking down the plastic. This may mean that mealworms may not naturally have the ability to eat plastic. Instead, when they start eating plastic, the bacteria in their guts might change to help break it down. Thus, the microbes in the mealworms’ stomachs can adjust to unusual diets, like plastic.

These findings support our hypothesis that the gut of certain insects can enable plastic degradation. This is likely because the bacteria in their gut can produce enzymes that break down plastic polymers.

This raises the possibility of isolating these bacteria, and the enzymes produced, to create microbial solutions that will address plastic waste on a larger scale.

What’s next

Certain insect species, such as yellow mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) and superworms (Zophobas morio), have already demonstrated the ability to consume plastics. They’re able to break down materials like polystyrene with the help of bacteria in their gut.

Our research is unique because it focuses on insect species native to Africa, which have not been extensively studied in the context of plastic degradation.

This regional focus is important because the insects and environmental conditions in Africa may differ from those in other parts of the world, potentially offering new insights and practical solutions for plastic pollution in African settings.

The Kenyan lesser mealworm’s ability to consume polystyrene suggests that it could play a role in natural waste reduction, especially for types of plastic that are resistant to conventional recycling methods.

Future studies could focus on isolating and identifying the specific bacterial strains involved in polystyrene degradation and examining their enzymes.

We hope to figure out if the enzymes can be produced at scale for recycling waste.

Additionally, we may explore other types of plastics to test the versatility of this insect for broader waste management applications.

Scaling up the use of the lesser mealworms for plastic degradation would also require strategies for ensuring insect health over prolonged plastic consumption, as well as evaluating the safety of resulting insect biomass for animal feeds.

This research was funded by: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Novo nordisk fonden (Refugee Insect Production for Food and Feed (RefIPro), the Rockefeller Foundation; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; IKEA Foundation; European Commission, the Curt Bergfors Foundation Food Planet Prize Award; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR); Government of Norway; German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); and Government of the Republic of Kenya. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the donors.