{"id":305019,"date":"2021-08-23T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=305019"},"modified":"2021-08-23T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T15:00:00","slug":"imperial-college-develops-living-building-blocks-that-can-repair-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/imperial-college-develops-living-building-blocks-that-can-repair-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Imperial College develops living building blocks that can repair themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Researchers at Imperial College London have developed living 3D building elements that are capable of repairing themselves if they are damaged. Imperial announced this in a press release<\/a> and in a study published in the journal Nature Communications<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperial lists the possible applications as e.g. potholes in the road, a crack in the fuselage of an aircraft, or a star chip in a car window-screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It could prove to be very important for the maintenance and longevity of materials, according to Professor Tom Ellis at the Bioengineering Department. “In the past, we\u2019ve created living materials with inbuilt sensors that can detect environmental cues and changes. Now we\u2019ve created living materials that can detect damage and respond to it by healing themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engineered Living Materials<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In order to create so-called ELMs (Engineered Living Materials<\/em>), the researchers genetically modified the Komagataeibacter rhaeticus<\/em> bacterium in such a way that – when damaged – the bacteria produce fluorescent cell structures (spheroids<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis states that the spheroids were extensively tested in blocks that had holes in them. \u201cBy doing this, the blocks proved capable of both detecting the damage and repairing the material.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeast<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The study opens up even more possibilities, according to researcher Joaquin-Astorga. For example, other yeast bacteria can be introduced into dressings that make wounds heal faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was co-funded by the US Army <\/a>and the Engineering and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers at Imperial College London have developed living 3D building elements that are capable of repairing themselves if they are damaged. Imperial announced this in a press release and in a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Imperial lists the possible applications as e.g. potholes in the road, a crack in the fuselage of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1723,"featured_media":514156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[30066,64355,64357,64359,47814,55453,53983,57084,64361,64363],"location":[55977],"article_type":[36684],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-305019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-bacteria","tag-bacterium","tag-building-materials","tag-engineered-living-materials","tag-genetics","tag-imperial-college-london","tag-maintenance","tag-repair","tag-self-healing","tag-self-repairing-materials","location-united-kingdom","article_type-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"British researchers have genetically modified the Komagataeibacter rhaeticus bacterium to repair damage to certain types of materials. ","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Maurits Kuypers","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/maurits-kuypers\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/newseventsimage_1629455848547_mainnews2012_x4-scaled.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["bacteria<\/a>","bacterium<\/a>","building materials<\/a>","Engineered Living Materials<\/a>","genetics<\/a>","Imperial College London<\/a>","maintenance<\/a>","repair<\/a>","self-healing<\/a>","self-repairing materials<\/a>"],"unlinked":["bacteria<\/span>","bacterium<\/span>","building materials<\/span>","Engineered Living Materials<\/span>","genetics<\/span>","Imperial College London<\/span>","maintenance<\/span>","repair<\/span>","self-healing<\/span>","self-repairing materials<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 23, 2021","modified":"Updated on August 23, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 23, 2021 5:00 pm","modified":"Updated on August 23, 2021 5:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1723"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=305019"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=305019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}