Sym-Bionic Matter: developing symbiotic relationships for light-matter interaction

With the term symbiosis, biologists describe any type of close and long-term interaction between different organisms. Life diversity and ecosystems completely rely on such interactions therefore, especially in such rapid change environment, it is of utmost importance to understand their complexity and resilience. Within this proposal, I aim to develop a new platforms to study these interactions in a spatially and chemically-controlled environment and manufacture a new class of hybrid materials: sym-BIonic matTEr. In specific, with the focus of light-matter interaction and I aim to (1) create controllable platforms where symbiosis with different organisms can be systematically supported and studied (2) develop and “evolve” new hybrid-symbiotic relationships where one of the organisms is replaced by an artificial material (3) exploit the newly created relationships in real application. I envision that such systems will be capable to combine functionalities from the living words (such as sensing and autonomous response) that otherwise are very challenging to achieve only with artificial materials. As an example, I foresee to obtain novel pigments capable to sense the environment by encapsulating in symbiotic-hydrogels bacteria colonies capable of making structural colours, or to achieve novel bio-photovoltaic and bio-photoreactors by optimising light delivery in the photosynthetic living elements and to expand their life by optimising the matrix that host them.