NEWSLETTER

“Aquaplastic” Made From Living Bacteria

Cell Crunch (Issue 2021.03.22)

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Some paintings become famous because, being durable, they are viewed by successive generations, in each of which are likely to be found a few appreciative eyes. I know a painting so evanescent that it is seldom viewed at all, except by some wandering deer. It is a river who wields the brush, and it is the same river who, before I can bring my friends to view his work, erases it forever.

— Aldo Leopold, in “A Sand County Almanac.”

Water Dissolvable Plastics from Engineered Biofilms: Biomaterials are already amazing, but synthetic biology has pushed their properties to new heights: cellulose pellicles with embedded yeast, mushroom leather, synthetic spider silk. And now … aquaplastic.

For a study in Nature Chemical Biology, titled “Water-processable, biodegradable and coatable aquaplastic from engineered biofilms,” researchers from the Joshi lab at Harvard University created a material, produced from living cells, that can be healed or welded together using water.