Weinan Xu1
University of Akron1
Engineered living materials (ELMs) are an emerging class of materials that combine living biological entities especially bacteria with functional soft materials. The incorporation of living bacteria provides the materials with biosensing, self-regenerative, and molecular computing capabilities. Recently, ELMs have also been used for direct ink writing-based 3D printing, which enables the fabrication of dynamic and active 3D structures for various applications. In this talk, I will discuss our recent progress on 3D printing with functional bacteria embedded in a supporting matrix or 3D printed bioreactors for advanced biofabrication. The bacteria can be genetically engineered to have specific functions, such as generating bacterial cellulose or reacting to external stimuli. We have demonstrated that 3D cellulose structures can be generated by in situ biosynthesis in the 3D printed templates followed by controlled shape transformation, which provides an efficient and versatile approach for fabricating 3D customizable bio-scaffolds for tissue engineering. More importantly, programmable microbial biosynthesis with two or multiple types of bacteria can be integrated with 3D printing, so that programmable biosynthesis of organic-inorganic biocomposites can be achieved in 3D printed bioreactors. We have shown that 3D hierarchical biocomposites with bionanofiber matrix and inorganic mineral nanoparticles with well-defined shape and internal structure can be produced, which provides a new platform for bone mimetic materials and tissue engineering.<br/>Ref: Liu, S.; Yang, M.; Barton, H.; Xu, W. Designed Microbial Biosynthesis of Hierarchical Bone-Mimetic Biocomposites in 3D Printed Soft Bioreactors. <i>Adv. Mater. Technol.</i> <b>2023</b>