Natural materials possess many distinctive "living" attributes, such as self-growth, self-healing, environmental responsiveness, and evolvability, that are beyond the reach of many existing synthetic materials. The emerging field of engineered living materials (ELMs) takes inspiration from nature and harnesses engineered living systems to produce dynamic and responsive materials with genetically programmable functionalities. Here, we identify and review two main directions for the rational design of ELMs: first, engineering of living materials with enhanced performances by incorporating functional material modules, including engineered biological building blocks (proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids) or well-defined artificial materials; second, engineering of smart ELMs that can sense and respond to their surroundings by programming dynamic cellular behaviors regulated via cell-cell or cell-environment interactions. We next discuss the strengths and challenges of current ELMs and conclude by providing a perspective of future directions in this promising area.
Keywords: Engineered living materials (ELMs); Living composites; Multicellular consortia; Responsive materials; Synthetic biology.
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