Richard Feynman famously challenged scientists and engineers to extend the engineering dominion over biology. While there is progress in this area, the reality for major achievements remains largely only a vision. Biological assembly exemplifies mastery over many molecular scales, from small-molecule nutrients to macromolecular proteins and genes, extending to still higher scales of the cytoskeleton and cell membrane. Synthetic control at these molecular scales has remained out of reach, but the microfluidic fruits of Feynman's challenges in systems miniaturization are poised to unravel the complexities of membrane assembly. This technology has led to the building of organized bilayer structures with cellular architecture that are capable of Darwinian evolution. This project explores layer-by-layer assembly as a route to synthetic cells that are programmable in terms of size, concentration of contents, and membrane chemical characteristics such as lipid compositional asymmetry and lamellarity, which are hallmarks of cellular architecture. The resultant ordered arrays of trapped cells will provide a platform for membrane prototyping, enabling the discovery and characterization of entirely novel membrane compositions and membranes composed of primitive materials that may have been present on the early Earth.
Biology is rich in complex behavior that will drive the most important scientific discoveries of this century. For many, this complexity can impede thinking rationally about its function, diversity and adaptation, and thereby impede further economic and technological development. The proposed research unifies synthetic control at the molecular scale with behavior at the cellular scale. Understanding and appreciating this unity is key to demystifying biological complexity and evolution by demonstrating the chemical basis of life on earth. To achieve these goals, the PI has developed educational activities that teach the scale relationship between atoms, molecules, and cells. Closely mentored high school and undergraduate summer interns will have the opportunity to control with their hands the formation of cellular structures through one-on-one interactions as investments in the nation's future scientific and economic enterprise. Palm Beach County middle and high school science teachers will be offered a professional development workshop to become proficient in this area to impact a large student population through instrumentation and curricula that connect the elegance of chemistry with the complexity of biological function and organization.
This proposal is being funded by the Systems and Synthetic Biology Cluster in the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB) Division and is being co-funded by the Chemistry of Life Processes Program in the Chemistry (CHE) Division.
