Some man-made living materials can combine the power of conventional building materials with the response of living systems. Think of self-healing concrete, a color that changes color when a particular chemical is found, or a material that can multiply and fill a crack as it forms (Step forward to improve living building materials). This will change the design and maintenance with broad economic and environmental consequences.
Looking at this new category of adaptive materials on consumer shelves can be one way. However, critical research by the University of Minnesota sheds new light on this exciting development and shows promising non-building materials (Step forward to improve living building materials), including biomedical applications. In a new study at Nature Communications, researchers from the College of Biological Sciences have shown how silica – a common material used in gypsum and other building materials – is transformed into a self-assembled, dynamic, and durable material.
Today, most artificial living materials rely on adding a living ingredient to the material. Although this additive approach has advantages, it lacks the required material – a product that grows, organizes, and even heals. Some researchers have created bacteria to produce target material, but they can only survive in good laboratory conditions. It does not solve this with real applications. Researchers led by Claudia Schmidt-Dannert, a prominent professor at McKnight’s Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, have used the well-researched and unhealthy bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which cannot sleep well, conditions and survival are good. . for growth. This attitude makes him a strong candidate because future products should ultimately be firmly on the shelf and easy to activate. The research team then created the bacterium and studied a possible method to integrate it into the silica structure.
“The first time we saw the cross-linking of bacteria and silica and the formation of hard material was important. At that moment, we knew it worked,” said Schmidt-Dannert. The findings provide a framework for designing new artificial living materials for coatings and plasters, key building materials.
The Schmidt-Dannert research team is beginning to work on new starting materials. “We are now interested in transcending silica using different cells – maybe even more cell types – to develop new artificial living materials for different applications.”
