The 21st century’s challenges in climate, energy, and health demand new biotechnologies. Synthetic biology offer solutions with consistency and reproducibility unattainable by living cells, but models for integrated synthetic cells systems are lacking. While the IT industry’s complex microsystems – based on transistors and electrodynamic principles – constitute a model, a biological equivalent is yet to be unraveled and developed. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SIGSYNCELL project aims to create synthetic cells systems that interact with their environment. By training doctoral candidates, the project will develop microcompartments-based experimental tools, using DNA nanotechnologies and optical systems, to build populations of synthetic cells with integrated functions. These cells will serve as building blocks for biotechnologies in energy, bioremediation, and therapeutics.
SIGSYNCELL is structured to respond to two main objectives: scientific and educational. The scientific aim and to engineer a life-like system of synthetic cells in interaction among themselves and with their environment. Since the scientific activity is carried out in the frame of a MSCA DN, the other fundamental aim is to train the next generation of scientists able to tackle such questions, and to give them the instruments to work with integrity.
To meet our scientific goal, we will develop a toolbox of experimental building blocks to construct synthetic cells and integrate them into large interacting populations. Using a bottom-up approach, we will generate systems having life-like complexity while keeping the control by assembling them from fully characterized starting materials; this unprecedented level of control over the assembly will provide the grounds to operate synthetic cells as a new type of biotechnology.
To achieve such goal, in our consortium we determined that the development of communication system is crucial, and we identified three key schemes: an internal communication scheme within the individual cells, a communication scheme with the environment and a communication scheme with the other members of the population. We want to integrate these communication schemes with chemical reactivity to fuel the system using chemical reaction and light to power the communication processes. The assembly process for both individual cells and for populations of cells will be based on the combination of microfluidics-based techniques, light-responsive soft matter systems and nucleic-acid based nanotechnologies. The research activities of the Doctoral Candidates (DC) will be centred on the development of the methods to design and assemble responsive synthetic cells. The building blocks will be based on microcompartments integrating transmembrane communication systems either protein based (DC3) or DNA-based (DC9). Those systems will provide the signaling infrastructure. Molecular signaling will exploit cargos as transporters (DC10, DC12) and a strong focus will be placed on the development of optical triggers for these transport processes (DC4, DC10). The environmental control will be performed using microfluidics (DC1, DC5) and the internal responses of the compartments will be programmed using biocatalysis, soft matter principles (DC2, DC6 DC7, DC8) and DNA-based systems (DC11).
To meet our educational goal, the research activities will serve as the first scientific training of the DCs. In addition, network-wide trainings on transversal skills are offered to the DCs at every periodic workshop. These trainings cover both technical aspects - like quality and ISO certifications - and soft aspect of research, like awareness in DEI, mental health, science reproducibility, ethics and trainings on science communication and video making.
To complement it, the DCs will have access to individual trainings offered by their host institutions and internationally using their funding resources.
