With her human bulletproof skin based on spider silk Jalila Essaidi became world-famous overnight.

At the Amsterdam Maker Festival she will share the story on her invention and its breakthrough.

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Jalila Essaïdi is a Dutch artist and entrepreneur based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Essaïdi is specialized in the fields of modern biotechnology and biological arts (bio-art).

She is known for her work ‘2.6g 329m/s’, also known as ‘Bulletproof Skin’, a project that achieved bioengineered bulletproof human skin reinforced with synthetic spider silk. In the IA Special by the Ministry of Economic Affairs about the bio based economy Essaïdi’s project was coined as a prime example of international cooperation.

Her more recent project, ‘Mestic®’, is a bioplastic directly derived from manure. The overarching goal of this solution for the excess manure problem is to create a circular economy with cow manure to generate new sustainable raw materials that can be used by the manufacturing industry.

Essaidi is director of Inspidere B.V., a biotech company based in Brainport region Eindhoven; director of BioArt Laboratories Foundation, a foundation that offers talents access to a creative hybrid laboratory and the tools and knowledge of the life sciences; bioart teacher at Fontys Hogescholen voor de kunsten; advisory board member for media & arts at the Lifeboat Foundation; advisory board member at the Chamber of commerce and author of i.a. “Bulletproof Skin, Exploring Boundaries by Piercing Barriers”.

In 2010 Essaïdi was a recipient of the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award for her project with biopolymers and in 2012 she got a Honorary Mention in the Category of Hybrid Art of the Prix Ars Electronica 2012. Essaïdi’s projects have been covered by Associated Press, Reuters, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, CNN and the BBC, among numerous others, and she has subsequently given interviews and lectures all over the world.