Directed Co-evolution of Next Generation Biohybrids for Energy Conversion

生物-材料杂化系统在医学、生物技术和能源领域发挥着越来越重要的作用。特别是，微生物生物杂交物为可持续能源转换提供了独特的优势(例如可伸缩性和产品的多功能性)，但其表现不佳限制了它们的应用和影响。生物杂交研究的最新方法是缓慢和受限的，在生物材料界面上有许多隐藏的对抗性相互作用需要克服。在这里，我的目标是创造一种开创性的方法，直接针对协同微生物-材料相互作用的创建、识别和表征，以实现在产生高效、健壮和可扩展的绿色能源生物杂交方面的阶段性变化。为此，我将：i)开发新的方法，以生成关键生物杂交组件(电极、电池和电荷载体)的大型目标文库；ii)开创生物材料工程定向协同进化的强大概念。与只优化生物元素的经典定向进化不同，我将在严格的标准下反复选择高性能的生物材料合作伙伴。当这些结果与常规筛选的结果相比较时，将有可能识别协同作用、拮抗作用或纯粹独立的生物材料相互作用。然后，我将描述这些伙伴关系的特征，以填补该领域的巨大知识空白，以了解如何设计而不是发现协同效应。我将使用蓝藻杂交太阳能发电作为模型系统，目标是最终稳定的光电流接近最高理论值2.4 mA/cm2(是典型系统的50倍)。这项工作为其他生物杂化材料和复合功能材料的转化奠定了基础，并开辟了一个新的领域：杂化系统的定向共同进化。

Biological-material hybrid systems are increasingly important in medicine, biotechnology and energy. In particular, microbial biohybrids offer unique advantages for sustainable energy conversion (e.g. scalability and product versatility), but their under-performances curtail their application and impact. State-of-the-art approaches to biohybrid research are slow and confined, with many hidden antagonistic interactions at the bio-material interface to overcome.Here, I aim to create a ground-breaking approach that directly targets the creation, identification, and characterisation of synergistic microbial-material interactions to enable a step-change in generating green energy biohybrids that are high-performing, robust and scalable. Towards this, I will i) develop new methodologies to generate large targeted libraries of key biohybrid components (the electrode, cells and charge carriers); ii) pioneer the powerful concept of directed co-evolution for bio-material engineering. Unlike classical directed evolution where only biological elements are optimised, I will iteratively select for high performing bio-material partnerships under stringent criteria. When these outcomes are compared against those from conventional screening, the identification of synergistic, antagonist or purely independent bio-material interactions will be possible. I will then iii) characterise these partnerships to fill large knowledge gaps within the field to understand how synergism can be designed, instead of found.I will employ cyanobacterial hybrids for solar-electricity generation as model systems, targeting final stable photocurrents of near the top theoretical value 2.4 mA/cm2 (>50-fold above typical systems). This work sets the stage for the transformation of other biohybrids and composite functional materials, and the opening up of a new field: the directed co-evolution of hybrid systems.