The journey behind the Mycelian Micro — from the first light-guided growth experiment to a published paper, a kit, a curriculum, and everything since.
FunguyLab was selected for MIT Future Fest’s Cambridge Science Carnival in Boston. On Sunday, Oct 4 (12–4 PM) we’ll bring “Grow with the Glow” — sharing living fungi prints and slime-mold color with 20,000+ visitors. Made bio-art with our light-printing tech? Send it by Sep 15 and we’ll exhibit your work. Event details ↗
We launched a standalone Slime Mold Dyeing Kit, co-created with renowned slime-mold photographer Yewei Jun (Qingfeng Zhou), who supplies the living Physarum cultures behind it. Grow and dye living slime mold into vivid, multi-color living patterns — no machine required. See the kit ↗
We're testing the light-guided method on new fungal species, studying how light shapes fungal behavior (not just form), and prototyping a physical bio-game where you interact with living fungus in real time.
We're exploring full-color printing with slime mould — dyeing the living organism so a single light-guided print can grow in multiple colors, turning a pattern into a multi-color living image.
We're printing slime mould into bio-electronics — guiding a living organism along designed, conductive paths, so a circuit board could be grown rather than etched.
We're building photo and time-lapse capture right into the control software — monitor a print as it grows, catch problems early, and auto-build a time-lapse of the whole cycle.
We shared FunguyLab at Science Slam, hosted by BUGSS (Baltimore Underground Science Space) — walking through our latest work: light-guided growth of Mucor, extending the method to slime moulds, and early progress toward slime-mould circuits — living, conductive bio-circuits.
At the 2026 World AI Conference, founder Kexin Wang joined MANA's four-hour gathering on the future of AI (artineer & FunguyLab among the sponsors). Her talk, "When Algorithms Begin to Cultivate," presented Cultigen alongside the Mycelian bio-art work, paired with live showcases across Shanghai and Nanjing.
Our STEAM curriculum is built and kept current with Cultigen — Artineer's AI curriculum engine — so lessons track the research instead of lagging years behind. The Mycelian Micro is Cultigen's first product in the world. Learn more ↗
Hackaday — a leading maker & hardware-hacker publication — featured the project in "Printing Fungal Art With Laser Control," covering the laser-guided growth method and the neural-network research behind it. Read the article ↗
We partnered with BantuProduksi as our manufacturing partner — bringing the Mycelian Micro from prototype to a kit we can produce reliably and ship to makers and classrooms.
The research becomes a product: a light bio-printer you build yourself, Mucor culture, agar medium, and complete control software — the world's first bio-print kit built on peer-reviewed research. See the kit ↗
We shared the research with Reddit's maker and mycology communities. "I built a DIY fungal printer that uses light to grow living art" hit #1 hot in r/mycology — 50k views, 1k+ upvotes. Read the thread ↗
Mycelian received the Jury Choice Award at the reEarth International Art Prize and was exhibited in Venice, Auckland, and Sharjah — reaching 40,000+ visitors. See results ↗
Invited to present at BioFabricate — the world's leading bio-innovation summit — with a conversation on living materials and the future of bio-art alongside its founder & CEO. See the post ↗
Presented inside MIT's Arts, Culture & Technology (ACT) Cube in Cambridge. ACT co-director and artist Gediminas Urbonas joined the conversation.
The research — "Exploring Fungal Morphology Simulation and Dynamic Light Containment from a Graphics Generation Perspective" — was accepted and presented at SIGGRAPH Asia Art Papers in Tokyo, one of the world's premier computer-graphics venues. Read the science ↗
The project received a Hazeltine Maker Grant from Brown University — funding to help build and push the light-guided fungal-printing work forward.
The project kept evolving through my time at Brown and RISD. One direction we explored: using light to guide shiitake (Lentinula edodes) to secrete melanin, then tuning that melanin toward conductivity — imagining a fungus that could grow a printed circuit.
Beyond the flat dish, I aimed higher — building a working prototype of an imagined 3D fungal printer. The machine ran smoothly, but growing living fungal sculptures in true 3D space didn't succeed in the end. A bold dead-end that taught us a lot about where the frontier really is.
It began at home. I built a simple lab in my own kitchen and started experimenting — and discovered that light could control how fungus grows. That one observation set everything in motion.
It started with a question: could a neural network learn to grow a living organism into a shape you design? In the lab — a laser, agar, and light-shy Mucor fungus — the first light-guided growth experiments took root.
Want to collaborate, pilot, or hear more as these ship? Email collab@funguylab.com or follow @funguy_lab.