Skip to main content

Thinking Soils

A synthetic biology approach to material based design computation.

Project leader

Dr Martin Dade-Robertson

Dates

November 2017 to October 2021

Project staff

Dr A Wipat

Dr H Mitrani

Sponsors

EPSRC

Partners

Arup Group Ltd Cornell University

Delft University of Technology

NTNU Nor Uni of Sci & Tech

Powerbetter Environmental Processes

University of California, Berkeley

University of Waterloo, Canada

Description

The project anticipates a new era of fabrication driven by synthetic biology, and the ability to manipulate living organisms to make new materials and structures.

This project goes beyond the usual application domains of synthetic biology. It applies them to civil engineering. It expands design methods and opens them to a new area of engineering design.

The project will develop a living material which can respond to physical forces in its environment. It will do this through the synthesis of strengthening materials. This concept is partly biomimetic, inspired by how our bones strengthen.

The project proposes to build this system using living bacteria cells, which have no such functional requirement in nature.

It is working with partners from across industry and academia to develop this proof of concept.

The project will investigate the broad applications of such a technology to create self-constructing building foundations. It will also look at making large scale structures that are very difficult to build using traditional buildings and materials.