SoylentNews

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at Duke University have turned bacteria into the builders of useful devices by programming them with a synthetic gene circuit.

As a bacterial colony grows into the shape of a hemisphere, the gene circuit triggers the production of a type of protein to distribute within the colony that can recruit inorganic materials. When supplied with gold nanoparticles by researchers, the system forms a golden shell around the bacterial colony, the size and shape of which can be controlled by altering the growth environment.

The result is a device that can be used as a pressure sensor, proving that the process can create working devices.

While other experiments have successfully grown materials using bacterial processes, they have relied entirely on externally controlling where the bacteria grow and have been limited to two dimensions. In the new study, researchers at Duke demonstrate the production of a composite structure by programming the cells themselves and controlling their access to nutrients, but still leaving the bacteria free to grow in three dimensions.

If manufacturing comes to employ bacteria to fabricate, will antibiotics be banned as weapons of mass destruction?

Yangxiaolu Cao, Yaying Feng, Marc D. Ryser, Kui Zhu, Gregory Herschlag, Changyong Cao, Katherine Marusak, Stefan Zauscher, Lingchong You. Programmed Assembly of Pressure Sensors Using Pattern-Forming Bacteria. Nature Biotechnology, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3978

Original Submission