EAGER: (ST2) Using Principles of Synthetic Ecology to Design Communicating Colonies

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Non-technical Description:Biological microbes have developed complex mechanisms for working as a community to perform a range of collective tasks crucial to their survival. Inspired by the interactive behavior in microbial communities, the researcher is developing computational models to design synthetic materials systems that share information and through this communication, perform concerted functions. The research can facilitate the development of self-reporting, self-regulating materials that not only signal when the system deviates from normal operating conditions or “homeostasis”, but also restore the system to homeostatic conditions. Such self-regulating systems will lead to dramatic increases in energy efficiency since they do not require external intervention to maintain their functionality. These bio-inspired autonomously functioning materials can also bring about transformative changes in the field of soft robotics, enabling the fabrication of small-scale, interactive devices that cooperate to perform specified functions in the absence of external stimuli. The students and postdoctoral researchers involved in the project are participating in a highly interdisciplinary field, and through their research efforts are actively learning and synthesizing new ideas at the boundaries of synthetic biology, biomaterials and soft matter. In particular, they will be adapting the approaches of synthetic ecology, which aims to understand microbial colonies by constructing new functioning communities, to determine factors controlling interactions in the synthetic communicating materials. The field of synthetic ecology is still in its infancy and constitutes a new frontier in science; by training the next generation workforce and developing new modeling approaches, the research team can make a significant impact in the growth of this burgeoning area. Moreover, by applying concepts from synthetic ecology to synthetic materials, the investigators will develop new approaches for performing materials research.Technical Description:The research aims to design “communicating materials” that: 1) are self-reporting and self-regulating, 2) evolve their properties in response to environmental changes, and 3) share information to perform a range of collaborative functions. Despite advances in active soft matter and self-propelled particles, few synthetic systems mimic these modes of biological activity. The NSF ST2 workshop concluded that such communicating materials systems provide a useful construct for addressing fundamental questions that lie at the intersection of biomaterials, soft matter and synthetic biology. Furthermore, the realization of communicating materials can pave the way to new technological advances. The investigator is specifically using theory and simulation to design communicating materials from experimentally realizable synthetic microcapsules that interact through viable physical and chemical phenomenon. The work is yielding new computational models that encompass both the spatial and temporal behavior of assemblies of three-dimensional capsules; the hydrodynamic interactions between the capsules and surrounding solution; and chemical reactions occurring both within the capsules and in the outer solution. These models also incorporate feedback loops that mimic regulatory networks in biological cells. Using these approaches, the investigator is determining conditions that trigger the synthetic capsules to exchange chemical information and through this communication, perform concerted functions. The studies have the potential to elucidate fundamental physical and chemical phenomena that play a vital role in signaling and communication among biological cells. Notably, both the biological and synthetic communicating systems dissipate energy and operate out-of-equilibrium. Research on controlling the self-organization and collective dynamics of the communicating, interactive capsules can provide much-needed guidelines for harnessing dissipative, non-equilibrium behavior in bio-inspired, physical systems. By determining fundamental physicochemical principles that underpin behavior in biological microbial communities, these studies can provide a window into the physics of living systems and organization of primitive cellular communities at the origin of life.This Division of Materials Research (DMR) grant supports research to understand and develop communicating materials that incorporate cell communities managed by the Condensed Matter Physics (CMP) Program in DMR of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorate.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.