About

Natural living materials grow following information stored in their genetic code. They also undergo continuous and autonomous re-modelling in response to external factors and adapt their performance to new solicitations. Such properties are desirable in many technical materials, but they are extremely difficult to realize with non-living matter. In the SPP 2451 Engineered Living Materials with Adaptive Functions, new materials with programmable and adaptive capabilities will be realized by combining living organisms with materials in a synergistic way. Materials with advanced property combinations like responsiveness to multiple factors, resilience or evolvability are envisioned.

To unfold the potential of the synergistic engineering of non-living and living components, researchers in materials science and in biology/bioengineering need to work together. These communities should collaborate in the SPP2451 to address some of the following research questions:

How can materials be designed to allow sustained cellular survival and function?

  • How can synthetic biology tools be interfaced with materials?
  • How can processing technologies be made compatible with living cells?
  • Which parameters and methods are required to characterize the dynamic behavior of ELMs?
  • What are the requirements for the standardized scale-up of ELM production?
  • What are the potential risks and mitigation strategies for responsible application of ELMs in the future?

 

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

  • Prof. Dr. Aránzazu del Campo  (COORDINATOR)
    INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken
  • Prof. Dr. Peter Fratzl
    Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam
  • Prof. Dr. Christine Selhuber-Unkel
    Heidelberg University
  • Prof. Dr. Wilfried Weber
    INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken
  • Prof. Dr. Cordt Zollfrank
    Technische Universität München, Straubing

 

FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Augmenting the function of materials with living matter is expected to yield major innovations. Projects in the SPP will target the development of ELMs with adaptive functions, as a long-term vision. The projects should go beyond proof-of-concept studies (i.e. straightforward combinations of engineered organisms and matrices).

Within the first funding period, the focus of the SPP 2451 will be on foundational approaches and technologies for designing, programming, synthesizing and analyzing living materials with adaptive function and responsible use. Each application is expected to address at least two of the following topics:

  • Development of design rules for materials to sustain and regulate cell survival, confinement and function, and demonstrators that validate them.
  • Development and validation of synthetic biological technologies to render living materials adaptive to desired stimuli.
  • Development of material precursors and morphologies coupled to processing technologies (e.g., 3D printing) that can realize and upscale multimaterial ELMs
  • Development and validation of methods to characterize the dynamic nature of ELMs.
  • Research on the responsible and safe use of ELMs

ELMs in the SPP should have a clear added value vs. non-living material alternatives. The functionality and potential application scenarios for ELMs in the SPP are open to creativity, as well as the nature of the engineered living organism or matrix. With regard to the choice of the material matrix or the organisms, there are no limitations. The SPP welcomes all type of adaptive property or property combinations in the envisioned ELMs.

In order to keep the SPP focused, the following research topics are excluded: tissue engineering in a classical regenerative medicine context, biohybrid materials with no function-relevant sensing/adaptation capability, biotechnological growth of materials without considering an adaptive function, and single-cell-devices without functional integration into a material.

All proposals are expected to include at least two PIs with complementing expertise. The collaboration partners should target a common goal. We expect most contributions to come from interactions between the disciplines of materials science, synthetic biology, biophysics, bioinformatics and biotechnology, microbiology, medical and environmental sciences, as well as contributions from law and ethics. Since the field is at the early stage of development, in the first funding period we expect collaborative proposals from applicants with relevant own expertise for the project, but not necessarily with previous collaboration records.

Proposals must be written in English and submitted to the DFG by 23rd October 2023.

The proposals submitted within the SPP 2451 will be reviewed in a review colloquium on January 17, 2024 in Saarbrücken.

Review Colloquium on January 17, 2024