汪郁雯&姚佳韻：華裔女孩攜手清理海洋

李曉涵

It started with a trip to the dump1）.

In 2011， Miranda Wang visited a waste transport station in her hometown of Vancouver. She and her friend Jeanny Yao， now a senior at the University of Toronto， were appalled2） to see the "enormous" amount of plastic accumulating in the facility.

"I realized it doesn't just go to the moon or get thrown away into magic land. It's very much there，" Wang said.

So they decided to do something. As seniors in high school， they read through the hundreds of pages of scientific papers and had an idea： find bacteria that could degrade3） plastics. Researchers at the University of British Columbia invited Wang and Yao to use their lab space to start working on their project.

Now four years in， Wang and Yao are turning their high school science project into a multi-million dollar， award-winning business venture4）. They are the co-founders of BioCellection， a company that takes plastic pollution out of the ocean and then uses genetically engineered bacteria to break down these plastics into a product used in the textile industry.

"Basically， we upcycle5） plastic pollution into usable materials，" Wang said.

BioCellection recently won the Grand Prize and the Social Impact Prize in Pennvention， Weiss Tech House's technology innovation competition. The company was also a finalist for the inaugural Penn Innovation Prize and won the People's Choice Award at College Pitch Philly， a regional business plan competition held in February， 2016.

BioCellection was the top undergraduate team and the winner of the Social Impact Prize in the Wharton Undergraduate Business Plan Competition， and they are competing against seven other teams for the grand prize this Thursday.

"[BioCellection] has been a top winner or runner up6） in pretty much every major competition there is at Penn across all the different schools，" said Jeffery Babin， the associate director of the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program in the School of Engineering and Applied Science， who has been advising Wang since last fall. "She's been very tenacious7） about moving this forward while she's still a student."

Though Wang and Yao have been developing their idea steadily throughout college， they officially launched BioCellection last May. This year they took their project to the next level， obtaining two patents and nearly $300，000 in funding.

"We've been preparing for this for a really long time，" Wang said.

After graduating in a couple of weeks， Wang and Yao plan to move to San Jose， California， to manage BioCellection full time. Wang will also continue working with a team at Penn that will support further technical development of the upcycling process.

BioCellection's revenue will come from both clearing plastic from the ocean and selling rhamnolipid8）， the usable product produced in the upcycling process. Under their business plan， BioCellection aims to become a $100 million company， taking 243，000 tons of plastic out of the ocean annually， by 2020. Wang said they need just three customers to break even9）， and they have already been approached10） by several companies， including sports clothing manufacturer Adidas.

"The most sustainable technology comes from sustainable business，" she said.

Yao， however， emphasized that the pair's ultimate focus is on the impact of this technology. "[We hope that] people would go to beaches and there would be older people talking about how there used to be plastic pollution and the younger generation would be like， 'Where's the plastic pollution now？'" she said.

Babin added that "she's got a very grand vision11） and is absolutely committed to that vision. And really the vision is to solve the ocean's pollution problems."

"For me， it was natural to couple12） the sense of urgency for how big the problem is to the sense that I can solve problems through science，" Wang said. "This has very much become who I am."

1. dump [d?mp] n. 垃圾場；廢物堆

2. appalled [??p??ld] adj. 感到震驚的；驚恐萬分的

3. degrade [d??ɡre?d] vt. 使降解；使分解

一切都始于一次去垃圾站的經歷。

2011年，汪郁雯來到家鄉溫哥華的一處垃圾中轉站。當她和朋友姚佳韻（現為多倫多大學的大四學生，編注：英文原文發表于2016年4月）看到中轉站里堆積著的“數量龐大的”塑料垃圾時，倆人大為震驚。

“我意識到這些垃圾不會就那么跑到月球上去，也不會被扔到某個神奇的地方，它們就在那里。”汪郁雯說。

因此她們決定做些什么。當時還是高中畢業班學生的她們從頭到尾閱讀了成百上千頁的科技論文，然后有了一個主意：找到能夠降解塑料的細菌。英屬哥倫比亞大學的研究人員邀請汪郁雯和姚佳韻使用他們的實驗室，好開始研究她們的項目。

如今四年過去了，汪郁雯和姚佳韻正在把她們高中時的科學項目轉變為一個價值數百萬美元的獲獎商業項目。她們共同創立了BioCellection公司，該公司將海洋中的塑料污染物清理出來，然后用基因工程菌將這些塑料制品降解為一種可用于紡織業的產品。

“大致說來，我們是對塑料污染物進行升級改造，將其變成可用的材料。” 汪郁雯說。

BioCellection最近在（賓夕法尼亞大學）偉思科技工場舉辦的技術創新比賽Pennvention中獲得了一等獎和社會影響力獎。該公司還入圍第一屆賓夕法尼亞創新獎，并在2016年2月舉辦的地區性商業計劃比賽College Pitch Philly中獲得大眾喜愛獎。

在沃頓本科生商業計劃大賽中，BioCellection是本科生團隊中最優秀的一支隊伍，獲得了該比賽的社會影響力獎，并將于本周四與其他七個團隊競爭，角逐大獎（譯注：現已獲得該項大獎）。

“[BioCellection]在賓夕法尼亞州所有學校舉辦的每一次大型比賽中幾乎都獲得了冠軍或亞軍。” 杰弗里·巴賓說。巴賓是工程和應用科學學院的工程創業項目副主任，從去年秋天起一直在給汪郁雯提供指導。“汪郁雯雖然還是個學生，但一直在非常執著地推進這個項目。”

雖然汪郁雯和姚佳韻在大學期間一直在持續醞釀她們的想法，但她們在去年5月才正式成立BioCellection。今年，她們的項目上了一個新臺階，獲得了兩項專利以及近30萬美元的資金。

“我們為此已經準備了相當長的一段時間。”汪郁雯說。

再過幾周，汪郁雯和姚佳韻就要畢業了。之后她們計劃搬到加利福尼亞州的圣何塞，全職經營BioCellection公司。此外，汪郁雯會繼續跟賓夕法尼亞州的一個團隊合作，該團隊將為升級改造過程進一步的技術開發提供支持。

BioCellection公司的收入一部分來自清理海洋中的塑料垃圾，一部分來自出售鼠李糖脂——升級改造過程中產生的可利用產物。根據她們的經營計劃，BioCellection的目標是在2020年前成為一家價值1億美元的公司，每年從海洋中清理出24.3萬噸的塑料。汪郁雯說她們只需有三個客戶就可以達到收支平衡，而已經有好幾家公司跟她們進行了接洽，其中包括運動服裝生產商阿迪達斯。

“最可持續發展的技術誕生于可持續發展的產業。”她說。

然而，姚佳韻強調說她們二人最終關注的還是這項技術帶來的影響。“[我們希望]當人們去沙灘上時，會有年長些的人談起過去的塑料污染，而年輕的一代則會問：‘現在塑料污染去哪兒了？”她說。

巴賓補充道：“汪郁雯有一個宏大的愿景，并且為此全力以赴。確實，這個愿景就是解決海洋污染問題。”

“問題的嚴重性帶來一種緊迫感，同時我也感覺自己可以通過科學來解決問題。對我來說，這兩種感覺很自然地結合在一起，” 汪郁雯說，“這已經完完全全成了我的行事方式。”