Engineered cell-based sensors and actuators have great potential for diverse applications in medicine, environmental cleanup, and biotechnology. Their applications, however, have been limited by their lack of controllability and scalability. To address this challenge, the proposed research aims to develop a unique platform technology -- microbial swarmbots, which integrates synthetic biology and biomaterials engineering. A swarmbot consists of autonomously regulated, small bacterialpopulations that are encapsulated in microcapsules built from synthetic or natural polymers. The proposed research will demonstrate the integration of the swarmbots with sensors and actuators of practical relevance.
The resulting platform has several distinctive design features: (1) Programmability & modularity: microcapsule properties and circuit functions can be independently designed and optimized, which facilitates "plug-n-play" integration for broad applications. (2) Safety: Multi-layer safeguard mechanisms are embedded in system design - bacteria escaping from capsules are programmed to die. This strategy directly addresses the concern on using live bacteria for medical or environmental applications. (3) Stability and efficiency: Micro-encapsulation will reduce the probability of mutants taking over (by partitioning the bacterial populations into encapsulated "microcolonies"), thus enhancing overall genetic stability of gene circuits.
