Design the Future 2: Thinking Soils: Engineered bacteria as computational agents in the design and manufacture of new materials and structures

该提案预测了一个由合成生物学和我们操纵生物体制造新材料和结构的能力驱动的制造新时代。我们也正在超越合成生物学通常的应用领域，将其应用于土木工程，扩展了设计方法，开辟了工程设计的新领域。为了实现这一目标，我们将开发一种能够通过合成强化材料对环境中的物理力量做出反应的活材料。这个概念部分是仿生学的启发，例如，我们的骨骼在重复负荷下变得更致密的方式。然而，我们也建议使用在自然界中没有这种功能需求的活细菌细胞来构建这个系统。想象一个含有数十亿工程细菌的水凝胶（果冻）。一个重物被放在果冻的上面，当它被装载时，细菌在物质上感觉到环境的机械变化，并开始诱导矿物晶体的形成。在制作这种材料的过程中，果冻会变硬并加强以抵抗载荷。在这个项目的最后，我们将能够证明这一原则，创造一种全新的生活材料。我们正在与来自工业界和学术界的项目合作伙伴合作，开发这一概念的证明，并研究这种技术的广泛应用，例如，创建自构建的建筑基础，并在使用传统建筑和材料很难建造的地方建造大型结构。

The proposal anticipates a new era of fabrication driven by Synthetic Biology and our ability to manipulate living organisms to make new materials and structures. We are also going beyond the usual application domains of Synthetic Biology by applying it to Civil Engineering, expanding design methods and opening up a new area of Engineering Design.To achieve this we will develop a living material which can respond to physical forces in its environment through the synthesis of strengthening materials. This concept is partly biomimetic inspired by for example the way in which our bones strengthen, becoming more dense under repeated load. However, we are also proposing to buid this system using living bacteria cells which have no such functional requirement in nature.Imagine a hydrogel (jelly) containing billions of engineered bacteria. A weight is placed on top of the jelly and, as it is loaded the bacteria in the material sense the mechanical changes in their environment and begin to induce mineral crystals to form. As they make this material the jelly stiffens and strengthens to resist the load. By the end of this project we will be able to demonstrate this principle creating an entirely novel living material. We are working with project partners from across industry and academia to develop this proof of concept and to investigate the broad applications of such a technology to, for example, create self constructing building foundations and make large scale structures where it is very difficult to build using traditional buildings and materials.