Synthetic tissues from communicating droplet networks

Venue: Edificio Povo 2, via Sommarive nr. 9, Povo (Tn) - Room B101
 At 11.30 a.m.

• Hagan Bayley - Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Progress has been made on building minimal cells, but synthetic tissues have received limited attention. By 3D printing, we have assembled synthetic tissues comprising patterned networks of thousands of aqueous droplets joined by lipid bilayers. The droplets communicate with each other and with the environment through engineered protein pores. 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. To a modest degree, these goals have been achieved. We now aim to interface our synthetic tissues with living tissues and control them with external stimuli.