Biomaterials-Enabled Multiscale Drug Delivery in Plants

The infrastructure of agro-food systems is responsible for more than 25% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions while facing pressure to support an increasing world population. For the first time in history, the availability of arable land has plateaued, and crop yields are threatened by stressors such as soil salinity and drought that are further exacerbated by climate change. Food security and food waste are twin crises; more than 800 million people are undernourished, and 30% of food is lost or wasted from farm to fork. As new technologies that are economically sustainable, scalable, and rapidly deployable to market are needed to address these challenges, an opportunity lies for biomaterials to lead innovation in the agro-food industry. Our laboratory strives to reinvent biopolymers as advanced materials for boosting food security. Here, we will highlight recent developments in the nanomanufacturing of biopolymers to design: (i) pollen-like biodegradable microcapsules for the precise delivery of agrochemicals via foliar spray, (ii) silk-based Pickering emulsions that target specific plant tissues such as trichomes, (iii) nanocarriers for the delivery of genetic materials in plant cells, and (iv) different solutions to enhance the deployment of biofertilizers in soil using principles of bioinspiration and biomaterials design. These examples will provide an opportunity to discuss new mechanisms of biopolymers directed assembly and nanofabrication and the production at scale of biopolymer formats that can perform at the interface with living matter to improve planetary health.