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

我们的细胞是最精细的生物机器。它们不断地释放和吸收环境中的数十亿个分子，它们使用这种通信系统来处理信息并采取相应的行动。然而，操作和编程单元并理解其内在复杂性是相当具有挑战性的，因为单元通常很难解码和操纵。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造细胞样系统，这些构建块完全可以通过设计控制，并模仿自然细胞的基本结构或机制。在所有的细胞过程和机制中，实现运动和类似生命的系统，控制它们的运动，并淡化它们如何在相互作用的群落中自组织和自组装是合成生物学中最令人着迷的挑战之一。我的研究目标是制造能够将化学能转化为机械运动的人造和运动的原始细胞，模拟生物运动--趋化。化学梯度将作为信息源，然后被识别并解码为分析物触发的运动。在细胞生物学中，运动和交流是两个密切相关的现象。移动的原细胞将表现出紧急性质和复杂的集体行为，基于对化学信号的合作相互作用。这些结果将为在纳米/微米尺度上的自主运动和趋化过程提供基本的洞察，以转化生物技术和生物医学应用中的运动原始细胞的能力。

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.