The main goal of this proposal is to create a new technology platform to discover and study microbial life on our planet and beyond. The platform is called Gulliver. It will allow unprecedented access to the largest reservoir of biological and chemical novelty on the planet; microbial species that have so far evaded attempts to utilize their potential. This will open up a possibility to transform the knowledge of microbial biology, revolutionize discovery of bioactive compounds and even detect life outside of our planet. Fully developed, Gulliver will be a discovery device so simple it will require no special skills to study properties of new species, opening a way to serve as an educational and research tool in high schools and undergraduate labs. Its development will create opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and post graduate training at a cross-section of biology, material science and nanotechnology.
In this project the investigators will build a prototype of Gulliver, which represents Stage 1 of the development of the ultimate device. At this stage, Gulliver will be a chamber with membranous walls, with nanometer-sized (?feeding?) pores. Standard polycarbonate membranes are excellent for the purpose and are available off-the-shelf. One "entry" pore will be different, with a diameter close to the size of a bacterium (0.6-1.5 µm). This pore will be custom milled using ion gun technology, with alternative technologies available as Plan B. Once Gulliver is deployed to an environment, the entry pore will allow a single microbial cell to enter the inner space of the chamber, blocking the entry. Feeding pores will allow diffusion to bring in the naturally occurring nutrients and growth factors, enabling that cell to multiply, colonize the chamber and form a pure colony inside it. In this way, Gulliver will be able to grow and isolate species with unknown nutrient requirements, which is the majority of microbes in the biosphere. This Stage 1 project will test the concept of Gulliver autonomously "sampling" single cells from the environment, enabling their growth as pure cultures. In future Stages 2 and 3, the investigators will equip Gulliver with various nanosensors that will monitor and measure aspects of microbial growth, enabling for the first time metabolic studies of individual microbial populations as they grow in nature. Note that Gulliver does not require any human participation at any stage of microbial isolation/growth. The device can be pre-made and deployment into an essentially any habitat, be it deep ocean, animal gut, or extraterrestrial bodies.
