Directed Co-evolution of Next Generation Biohybrids for Energy Conversion

生物材料混合系统在医学、生物技术和能源领域的重要性日益增加。特别是，微生物生物杂交为可持续能源转换提供了独特的优势（例如可扩展性和产品多功能性），但它们的性能不足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有限的，在生物材料界面上有许多隐藏的拮抗相互作用需要克服。在这里，我的目标是创造一种突破性的方法，直接针对协同微生物-材料相互作用的创造，识别和表征，从而实现生产高性能，稳健和可扩展的绿色能源生物混合动力车的阶段性变化。为此，我将I)开发新的方法来生成关键生物混合成分（电极，细胞和电荷载体）的大型目标文库；Ii)为生物材料工程开创定向协同进化的强大概念。与经典的定向进化不同，只有生物元素被优化，我将在严格的标准下迭代选择高性能的生物材料伙伴关系。当这些结果与传统筛选的结果进行比较时，鉴定协同、拮抗剂或纯粹独立的生物材料相互作用将是可能的。然后，我将iii)描述这些伙伴关系的特征，以填补该领域的巨大知识空白，了解如何设计协同作用，而不是发现协同作用。我将采用蓝藻混合菌用于太阳能发电作为模型系统，目标是接近最高理论值2.4 mA/cm2的最终稳定光电流（比典型系统高出50倍）。这项工作为其他生物混合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：混合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.