Team:Peking/Project/3D/3D

3D Printing

3D printing is a new technology that has been rising for many years. The methods for 3D printing in manufacturing are quite developed, but in the realm of synthetic biology, there have been only a few attempts made. We believe that 3D printing can be utilized in many applications in both medical and manufacturing, such as with the synthesis of artificial vessels, organs, or bone tissues, and the creation of high-order biomaterials based on the high spatial resolution of the light. With more precise control of the response threshold of the optic biosensor, we can obtain holographic images from a solid medium.

A biofilm is an aggregate of microorganisms in which cells adhere to each other on a surface. Modern optic technologies like two-photon excitation or digital micro-mirror devices allow the projection of light patterns at the cellular resolution level, and by combining these methods and genetic circuits we can build up a light-controlled biofilm on the cellular level. This may have an important application in informational memory, as its memory potential is much larger than that of DVDs or CD-ROMs.

ost modern 3D printers work by printing layer by layer. This is done by ‘cutting’ visual objects into 2D slides and printing each layer onto a surface. This process is both slow and these devices require precise programming .

The principal advantage of our system for 3D printing is the burin light. Light is a cheap source with high spatial resolution, allowing for us to fabricate complex objects. The use of transparent stone LB or M9 medium allows light to be exposed to the entire culture.

We’ve attempted 3D printing in three different levels.

First, we tried the current method but the results proved it to be inefficient.

Later, we tried a different approach. We inoculated a liquid culture of bacteria with LB medium and constructed a device that emits three orthogonal beams through the beaker. After incubation for 12 hours, we obtained a beaker culture with light (GFP) emitting bacteria with an orthonormal basis made of cultures without GFP expressed. Since the LB medium has a slight brightness under the light that can also excite GFP due to yeast extract being one of the ingredients in the LB medium, it is in some way an uncertain composition. We used a synthetic medium, M9 medium later because of its transparent property and chemical definition.

Taking into consideration the most common application of 3D printing, the construction of a visual object, we built a part using the ColE promoter and agarase, which can decompose the agar. Controlled by our system, the light leads to the inhibition of the agarase expression, and the dark leads to the decomposition of the medium. This experiment resulted in objects sculptured by light.