Ceramic Living Fibers by Electrospinning

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Engineered living materials (ELMs) are considered among the most relevant contemporary revolutions in materials science and engineering. ELMs aim to outperform current examples of “smart,” active, or multifunctional materials and, hence, enable countless industrial and societal applications in which the “alive” materials improve autonomy, intelligent responses, self-repair, and even self-replication. Most of the current ELMs are primarily made of self-produced polymers, either proteins or polysaccharides, which often suffer from poor mechanical properties, restricting their use in several high-performance engineering solutions. The Cera-LiFE project, for the first time, aims to develop engineered living ceramic fibers, a novel class of ELMs, that can outperform the mechanical properties of current biological ELMs. The general concept of Cera-LiFE includes electrospinning-assisted encapsulation of ureolytic bacteria within fibers, where the bacteria-driven biomineralization will transform the fibers into living ceramic fibers. Under the DFG Nachwuchsakademie "Engineered Living Materials" framework, Cera-LiFE identifies the following objectives for the successful execution of the project: (i) successful demonstration of ureolytic bacteria within electrospun fibers, which contain essential chemical ingredients for biomineralization and yet facilitate long cell viability with high cell loading, and (ii) characterize the progressive biomineralization of the fibers and demonstrate the high mechanical performances of the living ceramic fibers. The project results will serve as the foundation of a future DFG proposal which will explore further fundamental and applied aspects of living ceramic fibers.