Description du projet
Reproduire des systèmes vivants à l’échelle microscopique
Les systèmes vivants comme les tissus, les organes et les organites subissent des processus biologiques spécifiques dans des compartiments afin de parvenir à une plus grande efficacité. Pouvoir reproduire ce confinement fonctionnel de manière artificielle ouvrirait de nouvelles possibilités pour des progrès technologiques dans le domaine biomédical. Le projet ACDC, financé par l’UE, exploitera la technologie de laboratoire sur puce et la microfluidique pour développer une plateforme fonctionnelle pouvant être programmée et reconfigurée pour des applications théranostiques ou environnementales. La génération d’architectures réactives suivra la hiérarchie des systèmes vivants, et les capsules qui en découlent pourront communiquer entre elles comme des microlaboratoires, en effectuant des réactions biochimiques ou chimiques.
Objectif
We envision a future where ‘chemical apps’ on mobile devices produce on demand valuable compounds for health and performance as well as apps for bioagent threat detection and disease. To take concrete and defined steps toward this future vision, we will exploit the miniaturization provided by lab on a chip technology and construct responsive architectures and metabolism based on living cells and tissues. We will build programmable and re-configurable, (bio)chemical processes, with precision, order, and as hierarchical cellular constructs, in the same way as living systems. We will enable microscale, liquid-based, chemical compartmentalisation (cores), and inter-compartmental (core-core) communication, just as one finds in organelles, cells and tissues. ACDC will focus on developing this next generation technology through a detailed workplan that heavily involves the nontrivial tasks of integrating diverse state of the art technologies including microfluidics, microwave resonators, DNA-based supramolecular assembly, in vitro gene expression and the integration of membrane channels into a functional platform. In a future embodiment of this project, artificial cell technology will be used as programmable and reconfigurable matter for specific applications, including theranostics and personalized medicine as well as sensing and actuation in the environments for bioremediation.
As the first steps towards that future vision, we aim to produce an artificial technological construct and process that recapitulates some aspects of living systems on the microscale, and therefore this project will produce exemplars of secondary living technologies concentrating on the wetware class [1] but also a multi-level mathematical framework. We have assembled an international, interdisciplinary team from academia, industry and public engagement. Our outreach and engagement programme will define the impact in both the public and economic sectors with ethical dimensions considered. Further, building upon 55 years of collective start-up enterprise experience, we will explore the translation of new intellectual property generated into commercial advantage and job creation for the European Union.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsmicrofluidics
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediation
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteins
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespersonalized medicine
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologies
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Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
38122 Trento
Italie