Dr. James MacDonald
Founder / Entrepreneur Solena Materials
Solena combines the best features of synthetic and natural fibres
Solena Materials is a pioneering biomaterials company developing the next generation of sustainable synthetic fibres for the fashion industry. Using AI-driven protein design, Solena creates high-performance, biodegradable, and non-oil derived fibres that offer a sustainable alternative to traditional synthetic materials. Founded by experts from Imperial College London, the company’s innovative platform enables scalable, eco-conscious textile solutions for premium and accessible luxury apparel brands. Co-founder and CEO Dr. James MacDonald speaks to Fibre2Fashion about how Solena is merging protein engineering with deep learning to revolutionise performance textiles, tackle microplastic pollution, and accelerate the shift towards a circular, regenerative fashion supply chain.
As regulatory and consumer pressure for sustainability increases, how is the textile industry adapting to ensure bio-derived materials can meet durability and performance standards?
Brands are increasingly demanding materials that offer the environmental credentials of bio-derived products without compromising on mechanical performance, colourfastness, or tactile qualities. Our approach meets these expectations through rigorous testing and computational optimisation, ensuring that our materials exceed industry benchmarks in key performance metrics.
What are the core advantages of your synthetic protein fibres over conventional synthetic and natural materials?
Solena’s protein fibres are engineered from first principles at the molecular level using computational design, enabling us to produce high performance fibres that can be tailored to specific applications. This allows Solena to combine the best features of synthetic and natural fibres—the mechanical performance of synthetic fibres and the biodegradability and comfort of natural fibres. Solena’s fibres are produced from renewable feedstocks and require significantly less water, land and energy to produce.
How does your high-throughput testing platform accelerate the material innovation cycle?
Our platform combines AI-driven de novo protein design with automated expression, purification and a high throughput proprietary rapid mechanical testing method that uses tiny milligram quantities of protein. The proprietary mechanical testing system provides data on key fibre traits which is used to train our AI models, enabling iterative design improvements that significantly shorten the development cycle.
In 2022, Insempra made a strategic investment in Solena. How has this partnership influenced your company’s growth and technological advancements?
Insempra’s strategic investment accelerated Solena’s commercial and technical trajectory. It enabled us to scale R&D, expand our team, and progress towards pilot-scale production. More importantly, Insempra brings expertise in scaling bio-manufacturing, which complements our AI design and testing capabilities.
What specific environmental metrics are you using to measure the sustainability of your fibres compared to polyester or cotton?
We are assessing sustainability using established standards such as OECD 301B for biodegradability and carbon/water intensity comparisons using lifecycle analysis frameworks. We benchmark these metrics directly against synthetic and natural materials to ensure meaningful environmental impact reductions.
How does Solena’s biodegradable, oil-free fibre address issues like microplastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions?
Our protein fibres are composed of amino acids which naturally degrade in the environment, avoiding the long-term persistence of microplastics in ecosystems—a significant issue with conventional synthetics. They are also produced from renewable, non-oil feedstocks, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
With the $6.7 million in new seed funding, what are your immediate plans for scaling operations and production?
We are using the funds to scale manufacturing towards a product launch with a well-known brand partner in the next few years. We will be moving to a large industrial facility, and we are increasing our team to boost production.
What challenges have you encountered in producing entirely new protein sequences that do not exist in nature?
Designing non-natural proteins from scratch requires the use of sophisticated computational models and data to train the models. One of our biggest challenges was building a platform to enable us to rapidly screen new protein sequences. This platform has enabled us to train our models and improve our understanding of protein materials.
What are the major scalability and commercialisation challenges that next-gen biomaterials companies face when transitioning from lab to market?
The primary challenges include achieving high-titre protein expression at industrial scale, ensuring compatibility with existing textile manufacturing processes, and maintaining economic viability. Solena addresses these through strategic partnerships, precision fermentation, and designing fibres with processability as a core parameter from inception.
What broader impact do you hope Solena Materials will have on the future of material science and the fashion supply chain?
We aim to catalyse a shift from extractive, pollutive textile practices to a regenerative model based on precision bioengineering. By offering scalable, customisable, and sustainable alternatives, we can redefine material sourcing and enable fashion brands to meet stringent environmental standards without compromising on quality or performance.
What role does machine learning and AI play in accelerating materials discovery and development in the textile industry today?
AI is central to Solena’s discovery process. Our algorithms predict optimal protein sequences for specific characteristics, reducing the need for trial-and-error experimentation. Combined with automated screening, this enables rapid iteration and optimisation, accelerating time-to-market and reducing costs.
How critical is cross-sector collaboration (e.g., with fashion brands, biotech firms, or academia) in bringing sustainable material innovations to real-world applications?
Cross-sector collaboration is essential to success. We are a spin-out from a university and our partnerships with fashion brands, and biomanufacturing experts allow us to align innovation with market needs, de-risk scale-up, and navigate regulatory and consumer acceptance challenges. Such partnerships are embedded into our business model.
Finally, how is protein engineering reshaping the future of performance textiles, especially in comparison to petroleum-based synthetics and traditional natural fibres?
Protein engineering allows the precise tuning of fibre properties at the molecular level, enabling performance traits to be embedded directly into the material’s atomic structure. This level of control is unachievable with traditional petroleum-based and natural materials.
Interviewer: Shilpi Panjabi
Published on: 27/05/2025
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
