Mars shelter problem can be solved with engineered yeast: paper - South China Morning Post

Chao Kongin BeijingPublished: 12:00pm, 4 Oct 2026Future settlers on Mars would need houses, but they must either spend huge sums transporting construction materials from Earth or use enormous amounts of energy to melt Martian soil into bricks.Scientists in Hong Kong say they have developed a quick and low-cost “living” building material made from genetically engineered yeast, gelatin and sand that can be 3D printed under conditions simulating the Martian environment.

Their study, published online last month in Chem Circularity, an international Cell Press journal, describes a biological binder that holds granular materials together.

The optimised formulation had a compressive strength of about 12 megapascals (MPa), around 170 per cent higher than that of the control formulation and within the range of conventional building materials.