BIOFORGE Division
Bioprospecting and Investigation of microOrganisms For Resource Generation and Exploration
Subsurface Biomedicince
BIOFORGE is the Washburn CHAOS Lab’s discovery division, focused on what microbes are capable of when survival is the only option.
This division treats extreme and constrained environments, such as caves, mines, and boreholes, not as curiosities, but as natural selection engines that concentrate rare functions, chemistries, and biological strategies.
BIOFORGE prioritizes function over taxonomy, integrating microbial community analysis, geochemical context, and untargeted metabolomics to identify bioactive compounds, stress-tolerance mechanisms, detoxification pathways, and microbe–mineral interactions that do not emerge in comfortable laboratory conditions.
By grounding discovery in environmental realism, BIOFORGE bridges subsurface microbiology with biomedical, environmental, and resource-relevant applications, extracting usable biology from places where life has already solved hard problems.
BIOFORGE Projects
BIOFORGE extracts usable biology from extreme environments, leveraging microbial survival strategies forged under pressure.
Bioprospecting in Cave Systems
Hunts for microbes in karst caves that have evolved unusual metabolisms and stress tolerance simply to stay alive underground.
Antifungal Compound Discovery Against WNS
Searches cave-derived microbial metabolites for chemistry capable of suppressing the white-nose syndrome pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
Detoxification and Transformation Pathways in Caves
Dissects how subsurface microorganisms work to chemically transform pollutants, nutrients, and metals when no easy options exist.
Cross-Cave Metabolomic Discovery
Compares microbiological chemical fingerprints across different cave systems in various areas to uncover rare or environment-specific metabolites.
Extreme-environment microbial survival strategies
Investigates how microbes persist with almost no nutrients, no light, stable but unforgiving conditions, and constant chemical pressure.
Intitate Communications
Got questions? Want to dig deeper into the abyss with us? Whether you're curious about bioprospecting, ready to collaborate, or just want to know what kind of microbe survives in a sulfur pit—we're all ears. Hit us up and let’s raise some scientific hell together.
