Minimal artificial tissues from communicating droplet networks — ASN Events
  1. Schedule
  2. Session 13: Complex Assemblies
  3. Minimal artificial tissues from communicating droplet networks

Minimal artificial tissues from communicating droplet networks (#32)

Hagan Bayley 1
  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Synthetic biology is being used to build devices through both top-down and bottom-up approaches.1 For example, genome engineering has been used to reprogram cells, and DNA origami has been used to produce a variety of nanodevices. While progress has been made on the bottom-up assembly of minimal cells, synthetic tissues have so far received limited attention.1

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We have assembled networks of aqueous droplets joined by lipid bilayers.2 The droplets in the networks can communicate with each other and with the environment through engineered protein pores3 and, like tissues, exhibit emergent properties.4 To mimic tissues, droplet networks should be endowed with various properties including the ability to store and use energy, to move and change shape, to detect signals, to carry out computations and take up and release molecules. At a certain level, these goals have been achieved.2-5 We now aim to interface droplet networks with living tissues and control them with electrical or optical signals.

  1. Woolfson, D. N. & Bromley, E. H. C. Synthetic biology. The Biochemist February, 19-25 (2011)
  2. Holden, M. A., Needham, D. & Bayley, H. Functional bionetworks from nanoliter water droplets. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129, 8650-8655 (2007)
  3. Villar, G., Heron, A. & Bayley, H. Formation of droplet networks that function in aqueous environments. Nature Nanotechnology 6, 803-808, doi:DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2011.183 (2011)
  4. Maglia, G. et al. Droplet networks with incorporated protein diodes show collective properties. Nature Nanotechnology 4, 437-440 (2009)
  5. Villar, G., Graham, A. D. & Bayley, H. A tissue-like printed material. Science 340, 48-52 (2013)