The Biomaterials and Biomimicry Laboratory is dedicated to the study of biological structures with a view to the interdisciplinary integration of knowledge. This space has a community of researchers from very different areas of knowledge who collaborate in an inter and transdisciplinary way, generating new ways of researching, doing and thinking.

The aim of the laboratory is to transfer new design techniques and scientific research related to philosophies and tools such as biomimicry to a diverse public, inside and outside the academy. Specifically, it discovers and understands the underlying mechanisms of adaptations and biological materiality of diverse study models, flanking multiple scales and ecosystems (such as bones, cuticles, shells, fibres, plumage, among others). Finally, these results are used to rethink, design and manufacture new materials or materials with similar or improved properties through methodologies, equipment and experimental techniques that navigate the areas of physics, biology, engineering, art, mathematics, among others.

In addition, the laboratory promotes national and international collaboration with other academic institutions and companies in the sector, fostering knowledge exchange and technology transfer. As part of the scientific research process, the important mission of training young researchers and students is highlighted, providing opportunities for internships, theses and participation in research projects.

In short, in the Biomaterials and Biomimicry Lab we collaborate under an open science model enhanced by human/intra-species diversity but also inter-species diversity by inspiring and "conversing" with natural models and mentors with enormous biological, physical/mechanical, processual and evolutionary knowledge. As biomimicry plays an important role within the laboratory, we aim at learning from local biodiversity, learning from other species rather than humans and taking into account their adaptations.

We question anthropocentric processes of doing and thinking that have an impact on the environment, promoting the search for alternatives of fair and environmentally responsible coexistence. Likewise, we link scientific knowledge and work with accessible technological and cultural philosophies, based on a deep respect for biodiversity, collaborative systems between species and the natural, human and archaeological heritage.

 It is a laboratory that embraces diversity in subjects of study and interdisciplinary personnel, seeks to bring together the knowledge of the various associated careers, questioning the modern division between the human and non-human spheres, as well as the distinction between cultural and natural productions. Our mission is to approach the logic of bio-materials in our Latin American countries that promotes the search for decolonisation through the use of accessible technologies, to distance ourselves from economic dependence and extractivism, as well as from dominant and hierarchical positions with respect to other forms of life and local communities. We work with and from collaboration with biological communities, local communities, local biological traceability and history, cultural heritage, limiting ecosystem loads and scientific rigour. 

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