CAREER:Engineering Microbial Swarmbots

0953202基于细胞的传感器和执行器在医学、环境净化和生物技术等领域具有巨大的应用潜力。然而，它们的应用受到了缺乏可控性和可扩展性的限制。为了应对这一挑战，拟议的研究旨在开发一种独特的平台技术-微生物群机器人，它集成了合成生物学和生物材料工程。蜂群机器人由自主调节的小型细菌群组成，这些细菌群被封装在由合成或天然聚合物制成的微胶囊中。该平台具有以下几个显著的设计特点：（1）可编程模块化：微胶囊性能和电路功能可以独立设计和优化，便于“即插即用”集成，应用广泛。(2)安全性：系统设计中嵌入了多层保护机制-从胶囊中逃逸的细菌被编程为死亡。这一策略直接解决了将活细菌用于医疗或环境应用的问题。(3)稳定性和效率：微胶囊化将降低突变体接管的可能性（通过将细菌种群划分为胶囊化的“小菌落”），从而增强基因回路的整体遗传稳定性。

0953202YouEngineered cell-based sensors and actuators have great potential for diverse applications in medicine, environmental cleanup, and biotechnology. Their applications, however, have been limited by their lack of controllability and scalability. To address this challenge, the proposed research aims to develop a unique platform technology -- microbial swarmbots, which integrates synthetic biology and biomaterials engineering. A swarmbot consists of autonomously regulated, small bacterialpopulations that are encapsulated in microcapsules built from synthetic or natural polymers. The proposed research will demonstrate the integration of the swarmbots with sensors and actuators of practical relevance.The resulting platform has several distinctive design features: (1) Programmability & modularity: microcapsule properties and circuit functions can be independently designed and optimized, which facilitates "plug-n-play" integration for broad applications. (2) Safety: Multi-layer safeguard mechanisms are embedded in system design - bacteria escaping from capsules are programmed to die. This strategy directly addresses the concern on using live bacteria for medical or environmental applications. (3) Stability and efficiency: Micro-encapsulation will reduce the probability of mutants taking over (by partitioning the bacterial populations into encapsulated "microcolonies"), thus enhancing overall genetic stability of gene circuits.