Prince William has sparked a major fan frenzy after he appeared alongside Big Manny in a video from his visit to Guildford this week.
The collaboration occurred during William’s visit to 2024 Earthshot Prize finalist, NatureMetrics, earlier this week.
Emmanuel Wallace, known to his followers as Big Manny, and Prince William were seen extracting DNA from a strawberry at the research facility.
As finalists, NatureMetrics secured £25million in investment support through the Prize’s Launchpad platform.
Writing on the Earthshot Instagram page, the 42-year-old royal expressed excitement about how the investment would help scale NatureMetrics’ innovation globally to protect ecosystems worldwide.
During their collaboration, William playfully introduced himself as “Manny’s beautiful assistant” as they began their scientific demonstration.
As they completed the experiment, Big Manny Manny concluded the demonstration by explaining that strawberries are “octoploid”. This meant that they contain eight of each type of chromosome in each cell.
Taking to the comment section of the video, one fan commented: “A Prince?!? {clapping-hands emoji] on TikTok?!?”
Another fan wrote: “My jaw dropped!! Now this is a collab!!”
After seeing William in the video, a third wrote: “I had to double take!”
Praising Big Manny for his work, another commented: “So proud of your success!”
NatureMetrics, which was founded in 2014, works to protect ecosystems worldwide through its environmental DNA technology.
William, who is dad to Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, noted during his visit that their growth capital would help scale NatureMetrics’ technology globally.
