Engineering a motile biohybrid microrobot

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Liposomes are bioinspired particles which have tremendous potential fortargeted delivery of therapeutics. Motile liposomes that can actively propel themselves towards adiseased site are difficult to design. Some bacteria are known to actively migrate towards, target,actively penetrate and colonise tumours.Our proposition is that instead of designing motile liposomes from scratch, they can insteadhitchhike on motile bacteria to ferry them to discrete locations, allowing liposomes to reachotherwise inaccessible targets. In addition to delivery, the engineered bacteria will also form partof the therapy itself leading to degradation of the tumour extracellular matrix, allowing theliposomes to reach solid tumours.We will engineer the liposomes for controlled response to external stimuli based on membraneengineering (Elani) and engineer the liposomes with synthetic constructs enabling the liposomesto also act as a kill switch to ensure bacteria destruction after therapeutic delivery (Ceroni andPolizzi). We will also have a non-genetic external kill switch module to control safety, achieved byexploiting a suite of stimuli responsive liposomes have been developed over the past three years(light, heat, ultrasound, pH).