Homeworld Collective

Thanks to Garden Grant co-funders
@sparkclimate.bsky.social sky.social and @granthamcsf.bsky.social, and to Quadrature Climate Foundation for making this possible through programmatic and regranting support.

By facilitating collaborative identification of problems that connect researchers to funding we're accelerating research in climate biotech.

This marks the execution of our first true Roadmap-Ignite-Fund-Synthesize (RIFS) cycle and the results exceeded our expectations. Our funding hypothesis was simple: surfacing important problems would be mutually reinforcing to funding solutions.

Announcing Our Greenhouse Gas Removal Garden Grant Awardees Meet the 11 teams selected for Homeworld Collective’s Greenhouse Gas Removal Garden Grants, a $1.4M initiative accelerating breakthrough research in biological greenhouse gas removal through a novel p...

We're excited to share that we're deploying ~$1.4M to 11 groundbreaking teams through our Greenhouse Gas Removal Garden Grants! Funded projects span from methane-eating microbes on tree surfaces to bio-enhanced rock weathering.

See the full announcement: www.homeworld.bio/blog/announc...

This marks the execution of our first true Roadmap-Ignite-Fund-Synthesize (RIFS) cycle and the results exceeded our expectations. Our funding hypothesis was simple: surfacing important problems would be mutually reinforcing to funding solutions.

Plastic → perfume?

On the new Climate Biotech Podcast episode, César Ramírez-Sarmiento shares how his lab uses Antarctic enzymes to break down plastic at low temps and turn it into high value products, like fragrances, that fit Latin America's market needs.

🎧 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Crowdfunding Platform for Scientific Research For Science!

Curious about the climate solutions researchers are aiming to address?
Check out the 50+ public problem statements on experiment.com/programs/gar....

Garden Grants addresses both issues by spotlighting the most urgent challenges and supporting the bold approaches researchers propose to solve them.

Why share problems openly?
Homeworld identified two critical gaps in the climate biotech space: risk-tolerant funding and limited interaction and collaboration among teams.

By sharing the problems transparently (while keeping proposed solutions confidential), we aim to foster cross-pollination of ideas, stimulate community discourse, and attract philanthropic funding into climate biotech.

These problem statements pinpoint what researchers believe are the most critical challenges that biotech can solve in greenhouse gas removal.

📣 Big news from Homeworld:

We’ve published over 50 problem statements from proposals submitted to our second Garden Grants program, focused on greenhouse gas removal.

The Unignorable Economics of Turning Science Into Technology In this post, we share progress on an internal research project at Homeworld using AI to encourage technoeconomic thinking in climate biotech

If you have any questions or want to get involved, please email hello@homeworld.bio

Read the blog post and report here: www.homeworld.bio/blog/the-uni...

◾️Want to help shape this? We’re deciding whether to extend this AI-based TEA tool more generally. If you think a low-cost, AI-driven TEA can speed up your biotech journey, please let us know. Your feedback will guide us on whether to invest more resources into making this tool widely accessible.

◾️Where are we now? We’ve wrapped up our prototype stage (read the report in our latest blog post) and are shifting our focus to biomining. Jesse and Jayme are spearheading a new TEA product specifically for biomining, and we’ll roll out a usable version soon.

At Homeworld, we have been prototyping an AI-driven TEA tool in order to help biotechnologists map their ideas to deployments.

◾️Why use AI? Currently, it costs $5k-$10k to even get a basic model started, but AI can deliver a solid starting point for a fraction of that.

The Unignorable Economics of Turning Science Into Technology In this post, we share progress on an internal research project at Homeworld using AI to encourage technoeconomic thinking in climate biotech

Every technology starts with a techno-economic analysis (TEA) - a basic financial model that bridges ideas with practical feasibility. More than the financial sense, it shows that the innovator knows HOW your invention would become something in the real world.

www.homeworld.bio/blog/the-uni...

Problem Statement Repository Community-generated problem statements connecting big challenges in climate change to actionable goals addressable through biotechnology.

For more problem statements in biological GHGR, check out our problem statement repository: (homeworld.bio/research/pro...).

Solving these challenges would unlock new approaches to biologically-enhanced enhanced rock weathering, potentially making it a more scalable, efficient, and cost-effective method for atmospheric carbon dioxide removal.

Characterizing the soil microbiocal functions that drive mineral dissolution homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/function...

A need for high-throughput platforms to efficiently measure microbe-mineral interactions homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/high-thr...

Lack of systematic measurement of microbial weathering activity homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/systemat...

Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) has potential to accelerate carbon dioxide removal, but cost-effective scaling remains a challenge. Microbes could play a key role in ERW by increasing mineral dissolution rates, but our understanding of their mechanisms is limiting progress. Key challenges include:

During the Garden Grants: Greenhouse Gas Removal (GHGR) application window, we will share a series of problem statements describing priority challenges identified by thought leaders in biological GHGR.

Today’s focus: Using microbes to speed up mineral weathering for carbon removal.

Problem Statement Repository Community-generated problem statements connecting big challenges in climate change to actionable goals addressable through biotechnology.

Solving these challenges could unlock major advances in atmospheric methane removal. Consider applying for a Garden Grant to tackle these problems, or share this with someone who should!

For more problem statements, check out our problem statement repository: homeworld.bio/research/pro....

▪️ Developing better assays for pMMO activity homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/methane-...

▪️ Engineering a de novo pMMO homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/de-novo-...

Genetic tools for particulate methane monooxygenase

▪️ Developing genetic tools for pMMO manipulation homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/genetic-...

▪️ Studying the subcellular environment of pMMO homeworld.pubpub.org/pub/optical-...

pMMO naturally destroys methane, making it a potentially powerful tool for methane mitigation. But pMMO’s sensitivity to its membrane environment, as well as a lack of tools for manipulating and measuring its activity, make it hard to engineer. Key challenges include:

During the application window for Garden Grants, we will share a series of problem statements describing priority challenges in biological GHGR. We welcome proposals targeting these problems!

Todays focus: unlocking the enzyme particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) for methane removal technology.

Garden Grants GHGR — Homeworld Collective Garden Grants: Funding to grow climate biotech

The Garden Grants application window is officially open!

We’re offering $50k-$150k grants (up to $1M total) to support de-risking ideas that intersect biology and greenhouse gas removal.

The application window closes 2/28.

Apply here: www.homeworld.bio/grants-green...