Design the Future 2: Thinking Soils: Engineered bacteria as computational agents in the design and manufacture of new materials and structures

该提案预计将迎来一个由合成生物学和我们操纵活生物体制造新材料和结构的能力驱动的制造新纪元。我们还超越了合成生物学的常规应用领域，将其应用于土木工程，拓展了设计方法，开辟了工程设计的新领域。为了实现这一目标，我们将通过合成增强材料来开发一种能够对其环境中的物理力做出反应的活材料。这一概念在一定程度上是仿生的，例如，我们的骨骼在反复负荷下变得更加致密的方式得到了加强。然而，我们也建议使用自然界中没有这种功能要求的活细菌细胞来建立这个系统。想象一下含有数十亿个工程细菌的水凝胶(凝胶)。一个重量被放在果冻的顶部，当它被加载时，材料中的细菌感觉到它们环境中的机械变化，并开始诱导矿物晶体形成。当他们制造这种材料时，果冻会变硬，并增强以抵抗负荷。到这个项目结束时，我们将能够演示这一原理，创造出一种全新的生物材料。我们正在与来自行业和学术界的项目合作伙伴合作，开发这一概念验证，并研究这种技术的广泛应用，例如，创建自建建筑基础，并在使用传统建筑和材料很难建造的大型结构中使用。

The proposal anticipates a new era of fabrication driven by Synthetic Biology and our ability to manipulate living organisms to make new materials and structures. We are also going beyond the usual application domains of Synthetic Biology by applying it to Civil Engineering, expanding design methods and opening up a new area of Engineering Design.To achieve this we will develop a living material which can respond to physical forces in its environment through the synthesis of strengthening materials. This concept is partly biomimetic inspired by for example the way in which our bones strengthen, becoming more dense under repeated load. However, we are also proposing to buid this system using living bacteria cells which have no such functional requirement in nature.Imagine a hydrogel (jelly) containing billions of engineered bacteria. A weight is placed on top of the jelly and, as it is loaded the bacteria in the material sense the mechanical changes in their environment and begin to induce mineral crystals to form. As they make this material the jelly stiffens and strengthens to resist the load. By the end of this project we will be able to demonstrate this principle creating an entirely novel living material. We are working with project partners from across industry and academia to develop this proof of concept and to investigate the broad applications of such a technology to, for example, create self constructing building foundations and make large scale structures where it is very difficult to build using traditional buildings and materials.