Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1557/s43579-024-00623-7
Giuseppe Maria Paternò
This perspective article focuses on the innovative field of materials-based bacterial engineering, highlighting interdisciplinary research that employs material science to study, augment, and exploit the attributes of living bacteria. By utilizing exogenous abiotic material interfaces, researchers can engineer bacteria to perform new functions, such as enhanced bioelectric capabilities and improved photosynthetic efficiency. Additionally, materials can modulate bacterial communities and transform bacteria into biohybrid microrobots, offering promising solutions for sustainable energy production, environmental remediation, and medical applications. Finally, the perspective discusses a general paradigm for engineering bacteria through the materials-driven modulation of their transmembrane potential. This parameter regulates their ion channel activity and ultimately their bioenergetics, suggesting that controlling it could allow scientists to hack the bioelectric language bacteria use for communication, task execution, and environmental response.
{"title":"Materials-driven strategies in bacterial engineering","authors":"Giuseppe Maria Paternò","doi":"10.1557/s43579-024-00623-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1557/s43579-024-00623-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This perspective article focuses on the innovative field of materials-based bacterial engineering, highlighting interdisciplinary research that employs material science to study, augment, and exploit the attributes of living bacteria. By utilizing exogenous abiotic material interfaces, researchers can engineer bacteria to perform new functions, such as enhanced bioelectric capabilities and improved photosynthetic efficiency. Additionally, materials can modulate bacterial communities and transform bacteria into biohybrid microrobots, offering promising solutions for sustainable energy production, environmental remediation, and medical applications. Finally, the perspective discusses a general paradigm for engineering bacteria through the materials-driven modulation of their transmembrane potential. This parameter regulates their ion channel activity and ultimately their bioenergetics, suggesting that controlling it could allow scientists to hack the bioelectric language bacteria use for communication, task execution, and environmental response.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Graphical abstract</h3>","PeriodicalId":19016,"journal":{"name":"MRS Communications","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141868289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-29DOI: 10.1557/s43579-024-00619-3
Paul Smith, Ethan Bounds, Kaleb Jones, Anthony Griffin, Zoe Gunter, Zhe Qiang
Development of low-cost and accessible techniques for creating intricate carbon structures is an important research area for advancing various applications. In this work, fused filament fabrication (FFF) of polyethylene (PE) is used to generate 3D-printed structures which are converted to carbon through sulfonation-induced crosslinking and subsequent pyrolysis. Carbons from PE precursors display more continuous morphologies than their polypropylene (PP) counterparts while achieving enhanced reaction kinetics at lower temperatures. This phenomenon enables robust mechanical properties under optimal carbonization conditions. This work provides an essential expansion of precursor selection and understanding of carbonization effects for 3D-printed carbon materials.