Collaborative Research: CYBORG cells: Modular integration of synthetic organelles into living cells

作为理解生命基本规则的更大努力的一部分，该项目旨在制造具有活的和人造部分的杂交细胞，以便研究细胞细胞器如何作为模块单元一起发挥作用。细胞含有不同的细胞器，这些细胞器扮演特定的角色并与其他功能单位相互作用。通过开发活细胞与合成部分(半机械人)的杂交，该项目提供了一种理解模块化的创新方法。目前的目标是开发人造细胞骨架，以便根据命令控制细胞的形状和组织，从而提供对基本细胞过程的洞察。该项目还审查了社会影响，以向该小组的研究人员提供信息，并帮助准备公开陈述，以增加更广泛的影响。这项工作应该会引发公众对杂交生物体在社会中的作用的讨论，并将研究公众对产生不自然的东西的担忧。其他影响包括培训一个高度跨学科的研究团队，在每个小组和跨小组进行密集指导。这一专题将吸引公众参与，并为许多外联项目和公共活动提供机会。细胞过程如何通过模块化来解释仍然知之甚少，部分原因是缺乏操纵整个细胞器的工具。该项目专注于开发两种类型的人造细胞骨架(SynCyto)，它们可以被引入活细胞并进行实验控制，其基础是：1)螺旋口肌丝；(2)磁性颗粒(磁性机器人群)。据预测，这些细胞将在细胞内形成动态组合，可以通过光或磁场等输入来改变细胞形状和移动其他细胞器，通过实验进行控制。这项工作为发展具有多个合成细胞器的杂交细胞提供了原则上的证据。这种合成细胞器承诺提供假体功能以取代或增强天然细胞器，并具有授予新的和增强的细胞功能的潜力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As part of a larger effort to understand fundamental rules of life, this project aims to make hybrid cells with living and artificial parts in order to ask how cellular organelles function together as modular units. Cells contain diverse organelles that play specific roles and interact with other functional units. By developing hybrids of living cells with synthetic parts (cyborgs), this project provides an innovative approach to understand modularity. Immediate goals are to develop artificial cytoskeletons to allow control of cell shape and organization upon command, offering insights into basic cellular processes. This project also examines societal impacts to inform the team's researchers and to help prepare public presentations to increase broader impacts. This work should spark public discussion on the role of hybrid organisms in society and will examine public concerns of producing something 'unnatural.' Additional impacts include training a highly interdisciplinary research team, with intensive mentoring in each group and across groups. The topic will engage the public and provide opportunity for numerous outreach projects and public events.How cellular processes can be explained by modularity remains poorly understood, partly because of the lack of tools for manipulating whole organelles. The project focuses on developing two types of artificial cytoskeletons (synCyto) that can be introduced into living cells and controlled experimentally, based on: 1) Spirostomum myonemes and (2) Magnetic particles (Magnetic Robotic Swarms). The prediction is that these will form dynamic assemblages inside of cells that can be controllable experimentally through inputs such as light or magnetic fields to change cell shape and move other organelles. This work provides proof of principle towards developing hybrid cells with multiple synthetic organelles. Such synthetic organelles promise to provide prosthetic function to replace or augment native organelles, and have the potential to confer new and enhanced cellular functions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.