Speaker
Descrizione
Living microorganisms are increasingly recognized as key components of next-generation technologies in agriculture, environmental remediation, industrial biotechnology, and biomanufacturing. However, their transition from laboratory systems to real-world applications is still limited by a fundamental challenge: microorganisms are inherently dynamic and fragile, and their performance rapidly declines under complex environmental conditions.
In recent years, our research has explored the use of natural polymers, biominerals, and nanostructured materials to encapsulate microorganisms. This work suggests that these materials should not be considered merely as passive protective shells, but rather as functional interfaces that regulate diffusion, hydration, mechanical stability, and chemical gradients around the cells. Through these mechanisms, they influence not only cell survival, but also metabolic activity, interspecies interactions, and long-term functionality.
From this perspective, encapsulation can evolve into a strategy for engineering programmable living materials. A key challenge lies in identifying combinations of natural polymers and inorganic components that can reproduce the dynamic behavior of natural microbial environments. At the same time, biominerals such as calcium phosphates, calcium carbonate, and biogenic silica offer the potential to actively regulate microbial metabolism while enhancing structural robustness and environmental sustainability. More broadly, the design of these materials must enable control over communication, nutrient exchange, and functional specialization within microbial communities.
Addressing these challenges may lead to the development of hybrid organic–inorganic microreactors, where microorganisms function as coordinated systems rather than isolated entities. Such platforms could provide well-defined microenvironments capable of supporting complex microbial consortia in applications ranging from sustainable agriculture and precision fermentation to environmental biotechnology, biosensing, and distributed biomanufacturing. In this context, materials move beyond a protective role and become active elements that shape and guide biological processes.
This research direction inherently requires strong interdisciplinary integration, combining expertise in materials chemistry, biomineralization, nanotechnology, microbiology, biotechnology, and advanced characterization.
Ultimately, the objective is to move beyond conventional microbial encapsulation and develop living hybrid materials, where natural polymers and biominerals are combined to create adaptive and functional microenvironments for living systems. These platforms have the potential not only to improve the practical use of microorganisms, but also to establish new design principles for sustainable, multifunctional materials at the interface between biology and materials science.
| Giovane Ricercatore (under 40) | No |
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