“…One of the barriers to the development of OE employing melanin‐based components is that in contrast to naturally occurring biopolymers such as polynucleic acids (e.g., DNA/RNA) or polyamides (e.g., peptides/proteins) which have specific sequences of monomers and therefore reproducible properties if appropriately purified; melanins are a class of biopolymers which do not have a specific sequence of monomers and therefore their properties are not necessarily reproducible (akin to polysaccharides such as cellulose), however, this does not necessarily preclude their use in real world applications (e.g., as dyes for textiles). Potential solutions to this include careful cultivation of melanin producing species under controlled conditions (e.g., employing expertise in blue, brown, gray, green, white, and yellow biotechnology), wherein the environment is controlled (e.g., defined media for industrial scale fermentations of bacteria/yeast or industrial cultivation of cuttlefish/fungi), or indeed the development of melanin‐inspired synthetic analogues (e.g., polydopamine); [ 654,709–712 ] and balancing the necessity for high levels of reproducibility (e.g., biosensors for biomedical applications, electronics for long term biomedical/technical applications) with utility (e.g., dyes, components of degradable/transient electronics (e.g., batteries)).…”