Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STEADY (Engineering homeostasis into living materials)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-10-01 bis 2025-03-31
Engineered systems of all kinds are designed to maintain their properties in the face of environmental changes. Physical or chemical coatings resistant to temperature or humidity are simple examples. These constructs are not adaptable but rather steady state, with indiscernible decline in function over time due to wear and damage. True homeostasis – adaptation to the environment to return a set point to its desired value despite fluctuations – is missing in engineered materials, even engineered living materials. The EU-funded STEADY project plans to fill this gap with a modular homeostatic system consisting of a sensor, controller and actuator that will act in concert to steer a material toward its desired setpoint.
We have engineered living materials with genetically programmable materials properties. We have developed concepts for feeding these properties into feedback loops that will be integrated with the materials for achieving homeostasis with regard to selected features.
We have developed methods for multi-organism ELMs where specific engineered species communicate with each other to jointly build living control circuits