By CHRISTIE MASTRIC

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — The prefix “myco” denotes a relationship to a fungus. A mushroom startup company that has that prefix, MycoNaut, wants to use fungi as a “green method” to remediate certain harmful substances from the environment.

MycoNaut, located within the Innovate Marquette SmartZone space in downtown Marquette, is making a proposal to the National Science Foundation for such an endeavor, which would involve cleaning up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Making up the MycoNaut team are its co-owners and founders, Ryan Iacovacci and Joe Lane.

Iacovacci has 15 years of experience in agriculture, from small-and large-scale agricultural operations to local food distribution. Lane holds a bachelor of arts degree from Northern Michigan University and has worked in the local food system in various capacities since 2017.

MycoNaut held a launch party for its efforts on Tuesday at Barrel + Beam in Marquette Township.

“We just want to inspire people,” Iacovacci said.

In fact, he stressed that fungi can help solve many environmental issues such as problems posed by microplastics.

“The more access that people have to fungi, I think that we’ll solve more problems,” Iacovacci said.

According to MycoNaut’s proposal to the NSF, which Iacovacci said will be submitted after Thanksgiving, PFAS are considered “forever chemicals” that persist in the environment and accumulate in the ecosystem. Increasing evidence has been validating the link between PFAS exposure and many adverse health conditions, including cancer, the proposal said.

MycoNaut also pointed out that PFAS recently were found to be bioaccumulating in smelt, a small fish that is an important food and income source for indigenous fishing communities along Lake Superior.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy has expressed to MycoNaut the need for the ability to safely destroy PFAS, MycoNaut said. It indicated that technologies to stop PFAS damage are being developed, but most are processes that would not allow the large-scale, effective removal of PFAS compounds in real-world environments.

The project proposal indicates that the first objective will be to demonstrate over a few months the ability of fungi to defluoridate PFAS under controlled laboratory conditions to determine the species can be used for degradation testing.

The second objective will be to further demonstrate PFAS degradation by growing selected mushroom species spiked with PFAS. This process will facilitate the next-stage, large-scale testing that prepares the project for the next steps of commercialization.

MycoNaut plans to integrate research from the University of Minnesota, particularly the laboratory of Jiwei Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, to develop a fungal kit to clean up PFAS contaminants.

The project’s success, MycoNaut said, would produce an affordable, carbon-negative, low-cost and low-energy breakthrough that could save “untold amounts of tax dollars” on health care costs and money spent to clean up PFAS.

It also said entities such as fire departments, airports and municipal wastewater treatment facilities have expressed the lack of affordable testing and affordable remediation options for PFAS. MycoNaut plans to demonstrate PFAS cleanup and weigh options to license patents to private companies that specialize in chemical cleanup.

At the launch party, Iacovacci said if awarded, the Small Business Innovation Research Grant for the first phase of the project would be $250,000. If MycoNaut demonstrates a proof of concept, it would go for a $1 million Phase 2 grant. Another funding cycle would be attempted to expand its lab capacity to approach companies such as 3M or DuPont to let them know of a commercially viable solution to the PFAS problem.

This is when NMU and others can play a part in the endeavor.

“Then we can employ a ton of researchers out of NMU,” Iacovacci said. “We can leverage our logging partners. We can grow an industry at that point. If we can solve this problem using fungi, this is going to get global attention for Marquette.”

He said that if MycoNaut doesn’t receive grant funding, it will still raise funds for the project.

Lane marveled at the level of support for the project, and for mushrooms in general. For instance, several vendors sold fungi-related products at the launch party, including items knitted in the shape of mushrooms, mushroom kits and art prints.

“A lot of people are talking about it,” said Lane, also known as “Mushroom Joe.”

“It’s on everybody’s tongues lately. People seem excited to interact and be able to talk about mushrooms.”

Want to learn more about mushrooms on your own? MycoNaut will hold a series of winter mushroom workshops in the coming months. For details, visit www.myconaut.space/winter-workshops.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.