How to Harness the Power of Fungi

At Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki, Eric Puro Made The Case That Mushrooms Had Moved Beyond Wellness Fashion And Into The Frontline Of Human Performance

There was a time, not long ago, when fungi belonged mostly to the forest floor, the apothecary shelf, or the margins of alternative health. At Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki, held in Helsinki, Finland, on Friday 3 June and Saturday 4 June 2022, Eric Puro argued that this era had passed. In his presentation, How to Harness the Power of Fungi, the KÄÄPÄ Biotech co-founder and chief executive described a market surging into the mainstream and a scientific field racing to catch up with public appetite.

Puro, an ex-corporate consultant turned entrepreneur and biohacker, spoke not as a mystic evangelist but as an industry builder. Fungi, he suggested, had become one of the most consequential ingredients in the nutraceutical economy, expanding rapidly across supplements, beverages, cosmetics, and even pet food. “We are really focused on some key values,” he said. “When we think about how we grow these mushrooms, we think about sustainability, transparency, and a very strong commitment to science.”

That insistence on science was central to the talk. What Puro offered was not merely a celebration of mushroom culture, but a framework for understanding why fungi had gained such momentum now, and why certain species, from Chaga to Reishi to Lion’s Mane, were attracting so much attention in health and performance circles.

The Market Boom Was Only Part Of The Story

Puro pointed to the sheer scale of the category. Fungi, he said, had become the fourth largest segment in the nutraceutical supplement industry in North America. Trend forecasters had noticed. Retailers had noticed. Manufacturers had noticed. And so, increasingly, had consumers.

Yet his more interesting point was that commercial expansion alone did not explain the fascination. The rise of fungi, he argued, was also rooted in biology. Humans were, in key respects, more closely related to fungi than to plants. We shared broad metabolic features, aspects of immune signaling, and a deeper evolutionary intimacy than many consumers realised.

That idea gave the talk its underlying logic. If fungal compounds were proving unusually compatible with human systems, that was not an accident of branding. It was, Puro implied, something much older, written into the long history of life itself.

Why Fungi Spoke To The Human Body

To explain the present craze, Puro reached back into prehistory. In his account, fungal dominance followed ecological upheaval. Their role as decomposers reshaped environments after mass destruction, creating the conditions in which mammals eventually flourished. That long coexistence mattered.

Humans, he said, had developed alongside fungal life in ways that made us particularly responsive to its chemistry. Our immune systems recognised many of the compounds fungi produced. Our bodies could interact with these molecules not as alien substances, but as signals with physiological relevance.

It was a sweeping evolutionary sketch, but it served a practical end. Fungal supplements, in this telling, were not simply exotic add-ons to a wellness stack. They were bioactive substances engaging pathways our bodies already knew how to read.

Chaga Became The Antioxidant Giant

Among the mushrooms Puro highlighted, Chaga occupied a special place, not least because of its resonance in Finland, where it grows on living birch trees in vast organic-certified forests. If some mushrooms have entered the global market through trend and novelty, Chaga arrived with the authority of both local familiarity and eye-catching biochemical data.

“Chaga has an incredible antioxidant value that supports our DNA and RNA,” Puro said. “By preventing them from being destroyed by free radicals, it allows us to live a longer, better life.”

His argument centred on oxidative stress. Chaga, he said, delivered antioxidant values vastly exceeding those of celebrated superfruits such as blueberries. This was not presented as a vague promise of “wellness”, but as a direct intervention in cellular preservation, with implications for longevity and resilience.

In a sector crowded with inflated claims, the power of Puro’s presentation lay in his specificity. Chaga was not simply “good for you”. It was framed as a defence mechanism at the molecular level, protecting the integrity of DNA and RNA against cumulative damage.

Reishi Was Presented As A Sleep Modulator With Neurological Promise

If Chaga stood for antioxidant force, Reishi was cast as a systems-level regulator, especially in the realm of sleep. Puro described it as a mushroom whose effects could not be reduced to a single pathway or one fashionable mechanism.

“Reishi affects over fifty different genes related to sleep,” he said. “It has so many different pathways that it can still be working even if we start to develop a resistance toward things like melatonin.”

That remark captured something important about the biohacking turn toward fungi. Many popular interventions in sleep health are narrow, acute, and vulnerable to diminishing returns. Reishi, by contrast, was presented as broad-spectrum, acting across a network of genetic and biochemical routes.

Puro also pointed to ganodermic acids and emerging evidence of anti-neurodegenerative potential. In his framing, Reishi was not just a sedative substitute or a bedtime aid. It was part of a larger neurological support system, one that addressed sleep while also helping to protect the brain itself.

Lion’s Mane Carried The Strongest Cognitive Charge

No mushroom in the presentation seemed to carry more futuristic excitement than Lion’s Mane. By 2022, it had already become a star ingredient in nootropics and performance supplements, but Puro’s case for it rested on a crucial physiological distinction: its active compounds could cross the blood-brain barrier.

“Lion's mane compounds cross the blood-brain barrier to stimulate nerve growth factor, helping to trigger neurogenesis and the creation of massive new connections within our brains,” he said.

This mattered because Nerve Growth Factor, or NGF, cannot simply be swallowed as a conventional supplement and expected to reach the brain intact. Lion’s Mane, Puro argued, worked indirectly but more effectively, delivering compounds such as erinacines and hericenones that stimulated NGF production within the relevant terrain.

The promise here was expansive. Neurogenesis. Stronger neural connectivity. Support against age-related cognitive decline. Reduced amyloid beta plaque buildup. In Puro’s telling, Lion’s Mane sat at the intersection of prevention and enhancement, relevant both to those seeking sharper focus now and to those anxious about neurological deterioration later.

A Mushroom Industry That Wanted To Be Taken Seriously

One of the more notable features of Puro’s talk was its effort to separate serious fungal biotechnology from the haze of wellness opportunism. He returned repeatedly to standards, biomarkers, compound selection, and evidence-based cultivation. The message was clear: if mushrooms were to be integrated into serious health strategies, the industry could not afford to rely on folklore alone.

That was where his own company’s identity entered the story. KÄÄPÄ Biotech, he said, was built around sustainability, transparency, and scientific rigour, values intended to distinguish a maturing field from the undisciplined enthusiasm that often accompanies fast-growing trends.

This was not just branding. It reflected a broader tension in the nutraceutical sector, where consumer interest often outruns regulation and science. Puro appeared keenly aware of that risk. His answer was not to reject the excitement, but to discipline it.

The Future Of Fungi Reached Beyond Capsules

The final turn in the presentation was perhaps the most revealing. If fungi had already entered supplements, cosmetics, pet food, and beverages, what came next? Puro’s answer was both entrepreneurial and unmistakably biohacker in spirit: new delivery systems, new use cases, and new rituals of vitality.

“We are constantly checking the market and listening to feedback to see what the next place is where mushrooms can be used to support and enhance human vitality,” he said.

Among the more unusual products he mentioned was a fungi-based sunning lotion linked to the practice of morning sun exposure, designed to support the cortisol rise that helps signal wakefulness and energy. It was a small but telling example of the sector’s direction. Fungi were no longer confined to the category of supplements. They were becoming part of a broader design language for health.

What Puro Ultimately Offered Was A New Story About Mushrooms

At Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki, Eric Puro did more than catalogue benefits. He reframed fungi as biological allies, commercial engines, and scientific frontiers all at once. The talk suggested that mushrooms had become compelling not because they were newly discovered, but because the culture had finally found the language, and the market, to absorb what they might do.

In that sense, fungi were not the latest health fad. They were a reminder that some of the most powerful technologies for human vitality may not look like technology at all. They may look, instead, like something that had been quietly growing beside us all along.

Frequently asked questions

How big has the functional mushroom category become?

Eric Puro said fungi had become the fourth largest segment in the nutraceutical supplement industry in North America, noticed by trend forecasters, retailers, manufacturers and increasingly by consumers.

Why do fungi affect humans at all?

Puro reached back into prehistory, describing fungal dominance following ecological upheaval and their role as decomposers reshaping environments after mass destruction, creating conditions in which mammals eventually flourished. That long coexistence is his explanation.

Why does chaga matter in Finland?

Because it grows there, on living trees, which gives it a resonance the imported supplements lack. Among the mushrooms Puro highlighted, chaga occupied a special place as the antioxidant giant of the group.

About the event

This recap is part of the Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki series, recorded in Helsinki on 3 and 4 June 2022. Read the summary of the whole event or join the next edition, HOLOLIFE Summit 2026 Amsterdam, on 14 and 15 November 2026.