Designing Motile and Chemotactic Protocells to Investigate and Exploit Cellular Collective Behaviours

我们的细胞是最精密的生物机器。它们在环境中不断地释放和吸收数十亿的分子，它们使用这个通信系统来处理信息并采取相应的行动。然而，操纵和编程细胞并理解其内在复杂性是相当具有挑战性的，因为细胞通常难以解码和操纵。我的研究涉及通过使用合成或混合分子构建块从头开始创建人工细胞样系统，这些系统完全可以通过设计控制并模仿天然细胞的基本结构或机制。在所有的细胞过程和机制中，实现能动的和类似生命的系统，控制它们的运动，了解它们如何在相互作用的社区中自组织和自组装，是合成生物学中最迷人的挑战之一。我的研究目标是生成能够将化学能转化为机械运动的人工能动原始细胞，模拟生物运动-“趋化性”。化学梯度将作为信息源，然后识别并解码为分析物的运动。在细胞生物学中，运动和通信是两个密切相关的现象。运动的原始细胞将表现出紧急的属性和复杂的集体行为的基础上合作的相互作用，以响应化学信号。这些结果将为纳米/微米尺度的自主运动和趋化性过程提供基本的见解，以将运动的原始细胞能力转化为生物技术和生物医学应用。

Our cells are the most elaborated biological machine. They are continuously releasing and up taking billions of molecules in the environment, and they use this communication system to process information and to act accordingly. However, manipulating and programming cells and understanding their intrinsic complexity is quite challenging as cell are often difficult to decode and manipulate. My research involves the creation of artificial cell-like systems from scratch by using synthetic or hybrid molecular building blocks, which are fully controllable by design and mimic the fundamental structure or mechanisms of natural cells. Among all the cellular processes and mechanisms, realising motile and life-like systems, controlling their motion and understating how they self-organise and self-assemble in interacting communities is one of the most fascinating challenges in synthetic biology.My research aims to generate artificial and motile protocells capable of converting chemical energy into mechanical motion, simulating the biological locomotion - 'chemotaxis'. Chemical gradients will act as a source of information that is then recognised and decoded into analyte-trigged motion. In cellular biology, motility and communication are two intimately connected phenomena. The motile protocells will exhibit emergent properties and complex collective behaviours based on cooperative interactions in response to chemical signals. The results will provide fundamental insight into the process of autonomous motion and chemotaxis at the nano/microscale to translate the motile protocells capabilities in biotechnological and biomedical applications.