Spatially Structured Synthetic Consortia of Microbes to Understand and Engineer Cells in 3D Environments

Project Summary/Abstract Microbes in natural habitats mostly exist in groups arranged in the 3D space of biofilms, and spatial heterogeneity plays a key role in the stabilization, communication, and functions in these multi-species consortiums. However, a proper platform to build a synthetic community of bacteria and systematically vary the spatial parameter to deduce key fundamental knowledge in 3D microbial consortia – cellular phenotype, differentiation, communication, gene expression, and metabolism – is currently lacking. My research program aims to (1) develop a printing platform to construct 3D microbial consortia with well-defined polymers, (2) study the physiology of cells confined in these 3D environments, and (3) engineer cells and their 3D arrangement to yield biomaterials performing useful functions. The outcomes of our research endeavor will be (1) new fundamental knowledge and understanding of microbial consortia with a 3-dimensional spatial context and (2) functional biomaterials directly contributing to human health. Our contributions will be significant and have a long-lasting impact by filling in the critical knowledge gap in our understanding and engineering capability of microbial consortia relevant to biomedical science.