Nanowerk  September 22, 2022 Engineered living materials (ELMs) embed living cells in a biopolymer matrix to create materials with tailored functions. While bottom-up assembly of macroscopic ELMs with a de novo matrix would offer the greatest control over material properties, the ability to genetically encode a protein matrix that leads to collective self-organization is lacking. A team of researchers in the US (Rice University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley) grew ELMs from Caulobacter crescentus cells that display and secrete a self-interacting protein. This protein formed a de novo matrix and assembled cells into centimeter-scale ELMs. Discovery of design and […]