Microfluidic Technologies for the Bottom-Up Construction of Artificial Cells
Oscar Ces,
Reader,
Imperial College London
This talk will outline microfluidic strategies for bottom-up synthetic biology that are being used to construct multi-compartment artificial cells where the contents and connectivity of each compartment can be controlled. These compartments are separated by biological functional membranes that can facilitate transport between the compartments themselves and between the compartments and external environment. These technologies have enabled us to engineer multi-step enzymatic signalling cascades into the cells leading to in-situ chemical synthesis and systems that are capable of sensing and responding to their environment. Finally, we have developed printing strategies for translating these enzymatic pathways into microfluidic flow reactors that have the potential to be scaled-up for industrial usage.
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