In February 2026, Rathan Duggirala emailed us with another milestone in a project we’ve followed for years: his research on paint made with bacterial pigment and a milk-protein binder had been published in the Journal of Coatings Technology and Research.

We've known Rathan since November 2020. That's when a 6th grader wrote to us through our website: "I have tried your Canvas Kit and I LOVED it." He'd painted his school logo in bacteria, and it glowed under UV light "like a neon sign." Six years and hundreds of emails later, he's a published scientist.

When we last caught up with Rathan in October 2023, he was a 9th grader at Mayo High School in Rochester, Minnesota. He'd used our Engineer-it Kit to make magenta bacteria, pulled the pigment out with the Extract-it Kit, and mixed it into a commercial binder. His goal for that year was a paint made 100% from biology: bacterial pigment plus casein, a binder made from milk protein.

He reached that goal and kept refining the paint, testing how well it held its colour and how to make it dry faster. And now he's a senior with three journal papers, two trips to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), and a plan to become a physician! Here’s how a sixth-grade science fair question grew into six years of experiments, troubleshooting and published research.

One question over six years

Every step built on the last, which is exactly the advice Rathan gave other students in his 2023 post.

Behind the scenes

The awards and papers tell one part of the story. Our years of emails with Rathan show some of the experiments, questions and setbacks along the way.

The experiment that didn’t work (grade 6). Rathan’s first Engineer-it attempt produced zero colonies. “I did it exactly like the video showed,” he wrote. We went back and forth on photos, re-streaks and a video call. Eventually, he spotted a possible mix-up: “The positive control cells did grow so I am assuming the problem was when I labeled them, I mixed it up. I know what I will do next time.”

Rathan's first Engineer-it plates, November 2020: no colonies yet.

A few weeks later, he sent us plates that might have been the best results we'd seen.

Spreading jam on toast (grade 7). His colony-counting project needed colonies far enough apart to count, but his first serial dilutions came out as a matted lawn. Our tip: dilute further and spread the liquid across the whole plate with a loop, like jam on toast.

A serial dilution plate from his grade 7 colony-counting project.

Thirty-five extractions per colour (grade 8). To make paint, Rathan needed far more pigment than one kit makes. We worked out that about 35 mL of liquid pigment meant roughly 35 rounds of growing and extracting, around nine days of work per colour. As we told him, “as a student, you can replace speed with manual work!” His reply: “I am willing to work on this.”

The colour that disappeared (grade 8). He tried drying his pigment into a powder in a food dehydrator, but after 15 hours the colour was gone. That led to a discussion about protein folding and what might have happened to the pigment during drying. Dr. Justin Pahara’s note to him ended, “you’ve stumbled onto a great scientific question.”

After 15 hours in a food dehydrator, the pigment lost its colour.

Scaling up (grade 11). By 2025, his questions had shifted from individual plates to larger-scale cultures and pigment extraction: how to filter cell extracts in larger quantities, and how to prepare 1.5 litres of liquid culture. In January 2026, with a deadline two days away, we shipped his engineered bacteria by express courier, and they arrived in time.

The published research

Rathan is first author on three peer-reviewed papers, all about his bio-paint, written with collaborators who helped take the work from science fair poster to journal. In February 2026, he also presented a poster at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference.

1. Can bacteria make paint? Duggirala, R., Mikkilineni, P., Croghan, I. De novo synthesis of biopaint using transformed bacteria: analysis of spectral intensity trends and comparison to commercial paint. Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology 15(10) (2024). doi.org/10.4236/abb.2024.1510034

His first paper was published in October 2024 as a high school sophomore. It reports the bio-paint made from engineered bacteria and tracks how its colour intensity compared with commercial paint.

2. Does it last? Duggirala, R., Berger, A., Oviedo, M., Mikkilineni, P., Kondragunta, V., Croghan, I.T. Feasibility and durability of a first-of-a-kind, sustainable biologic paint using bacterial pigment and protein binder. Journal of Coatings Technology and Research (2026). doi.org/10.1007/s11998-025-01220-6

The grade 9 paint version paired bacterial pigment with a casein binder, rather than using a mineral pigment and a synthetic binder. Rathan compared its colour stability with two mineral-based commercial paints under different conditions. In the conditions tested, the bio-paint showed colour stability comparable to the two commercial paints. The researchers reported that the statistically significant differences were too small to be visually perceptible (European Coatings covered the study).

Swatches of Rathan's magenta bio-paint.

3. Can it dry faster? Duggirala, R., Mikkilineni, P., Kondragunta, V. Enhancement of drying performance of biologic paint using cellulose nanocrystals and chitosan. Coatings 16(4), 412 (2026). doi.org/10.3390/coatings16040412

Bio-paint's weak spot was drying time. Adding 10% cellulose nanocrystals (from plant cellulose) cut it by 61%; 10% chitosan (from crustacean shells) cut it by 44%. Both additives are biological too, so the paint stays fully bio-based.

You can find all of Rathan's work on his ORCID profile.

Beyond the lab bench

Rathan’s bio-paint projects earned Gold Awards at the Minnesota State Science and Engineering Fair in both grades 8 and 9, as well as the Seagate Rising Star Award in grade 8. He has also received the Medtronic Innovation Award and the 3M Young Inventor Recognition Award. He went on to qualify for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in 2025 and returned as a finalist in 2026.

He’s also helped support the science fair community around him. In December 2024, he ran a fundraiser for the Minnesota State Science and Engineering Fair, the event that helped launch his own path to ISEF. In 2025, he served as Vice President of the Minnesota Junior Academy of Science.

He also writes as a teen columnist for the Rochester Post Bulletin. In one column, he made the case that teenagers aren’t waiting for permission to do meaningful research. His own record backs that up.

Watch Rathan's science fair presentation

Start your own journey

Rathan's research began with the same kits any student can order today. If you're a student or teacher looking for a science fair project that can grow year over year, here's where he started:

• Engineer-it Kit: engineer bacteria to produce coloured pigment proteins
• Extract-it Kit: pull those pigments out of the cells so you can work with them
• Science Fair / STEM collection: more project starting points

Congratulations, Rathan! We can't wait to see what you do next!

Read Rathan's original 2023 post: Journey to find safe and sustainable paint.