As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency. "I used to dream microbes as food," she recently recalled.
Today, Onyeaka is an industrial microbiologist and a deputy director of the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action, at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. In her lab, she is testing her decades-old hypothesis, trying to identify microorganisms that could one day serve as an alternative protein source while using a fraction of the land, water, and industrial fertilizer needed to support traditional crops and livestock.
