Biohybrid Bacterial Systems

Collaborators
PI: Lucio Isa
Fellow: Isabelle Feller
Collaborator: Simone Schürle-Finke

Goal
Biohybrid microrobots harness the innate motility and sensing strategies of microorganisms. For example, using the natural ability of bacteria to swim towards attractants such as chemicals or light poses promising applications for targeted transport at the microscale. In order to attach functional cargo for delivery and control, we propose to construct bacteria-colloidal robots using sequential capillary-assisted particle assembly (sCAPA), which allows to precisely control the geometry of the constructs and create them in a highly reproducible manner. This technique is combined with a microfluidic platform to achieve high-throughput assembly and subsequent analysis of the microrobots. By synthesizing controlled colloids, e.g. microcapsules, and attaching them to motile bacteria in prescribed architectures, we aim at creating a versatile and robust fabrication strategy for biohybrid microrobots.

Methodology
There are several way of constructing biohybrid microrobots however, sCAPA provides a unique technique to design and control the 3D geometry of the construct. Nevertheless, to assess the capability of different bacterial strains to survive the exertions of the assembly and retain their motility, a selective breeding approach is used. The iteration between motility assessment and patterning the cells with sCAPA is performed several times to obtain a robust bacterial candidate for future applications. In addition, particle surface functionalization is used to connect the bacteria-colloidal microrobot in a robust way, ensuring the successful transport of the cargo. Furthermore, to observe this process, fluorescent microscope video tracking of the microrobots is used to analyze the efficiency of the cargo transport, alongside with fluorescent activated cell sorting to purify the samples.