Living Materials

Engineered skin commensal nanogels mitigate psoriasiform inflammation through coordinated regulation of cutaneous flora and host immunity.

This review discusses living microorganism-encapsulated hydrogels and their microorganism-material synergy for next-generation therapeutic applications.

This study rewires energy flow in semiconductor biohybrids to improve solar-driven microbial biomanufacturing and waste-to-value conversion.

Engineered bacterial living biohybrids integrate H2S production and CuS-mediated photothermal therapy for synergistic cancer treatment.

Biomass-derived carbon dots enhance photosynthesis in biohybrids by converting light and feeding photoexcited electrons into photosynthetic electron transfer.

Photosynthetic bacteria provide living hydrogen-photothermal therapeutics for synergistic and targeted cancer treatment.

We developed a shape-transformable liquid metal nanoparticle-based material toolkit for one-step 3D printing of hybrid soft-rigid robots. The gallium-based nanoparticle inks enable tunable mechanics and shape-memory behavior, supporting high-precision grippers, bioinspired motors, and hand rehabilitation devices.

Hydrogels offer a groundbreaking solution for treating chronic inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis and atopic dermatitis by enhancing drug delivery and minimizing side effects. This review delves into hydrogel design, drug integration, and clinical trial data, highlighting their potential and future opportunities in improving treatment efficacy and safety.

We designed a soil-inspired chemical system that consists of nanostructured minerals, starch granules and liquid metals. The soil-inspired material possesses chemical, optical and mechanical responsiveness to yield write–erase functions in electrical performance. The composite can also modulate bacterial growth both in vitro and in vivo, such as enriches gut bacteria diversity, rectifies tetracycline-induced gut microbiome dysbiosis and ameliorates dextran sulfate sodium-induced rodent colitis symptoms within rodent models.

In this work, we show that the periplasm, an underappreciated subcellular region in materials research, can offer a nongenetic pathway for biomineralization of metastable semiconductor nanoclusters. Under light stimulation, the metastable semiconductor nanoclusters could couple with the electron transport chain to increase ATP levels and enhance malate production in the living hybrids. Using the E. coli strain as a model, the current system to develop periplasmic biointerface for enhanced solar-to-chemical production might be extended to other bacterial cells to potentially endow additional sustainability level to the bioremediation applications