Conveners
S10 Biofabrication of Engineered Living Materials
- Riccardo Levato (Utrecht University)
- Michael Gelinsky (TU Dresden)
In many therapeutic treatments, only a small fraction of the administered drug is absorbed, and a large part is wasted and released into the environment. Drug waste means economic loss and environmental risk. We present drug eluting materials with the unique property to self-produce biopharmaceuticals directly at the therapeutic site. The materials are hydrogels that host biofactories of...
Natural ecosystems, such as forests and aquatic systems, offer efficient pathways for carbon (CO2) sequestration, outperforming industrial carbon capture and storage methods in terms of resilience and environmental impact. These systems operate under ambient conditions, using sunlight and commonly available small molecules as their inputs. Harnessing the capabilities of natural systems offers...
Embedding modified microorganisms in polymeric and composite matrices, thereby generating genetically programmable Engineered Living Materials (ELM), is a field of high potential that gained tremendous momentum with the advent of the Synthetic Biology era. Among the numerous methods for designing and manufacturing ELM, 3D bioprinting stands out due to its remarkable ability to precisely...
While the research on Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) is picking up speed, our cooperation project “ContainELMs” in the priority program 2451 of the German Research Foundation focuses on a critical, yet underexplored aspect: biocontainment. While previous studies on hybrid ELMs have demonstrated their general functionality, safe containment of living cells remains a challenge.1,2
This...
Title
Fabrication of Symbiotic Engineered Living Materials for Bone–Fat Interface Modelling
Introduction
The fabrication of in vitro tissues commonly involves the embedding of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) within a hydrogel matrix and the addition of biochemical or physical cues to passively instigate differentiation into a desired lineage. The PRISM-LT project adopts a proactive approach...
Engineered Living Materials (ELM) harness the extraordinary sensory capabilities and versatile production capacities of living organisms to give materials adaptive functions. The combination of ELM with (3D) bioprinting processes is particularly exciting in this context. Through the targeted application of materials or the construction of complex branched or highly porous multi-material...
