bims-livmat Biomed News
on Living materials
Issue of 2026–05–17
six papers selected by
Sara Trujillo Muñoz, Leibniz-Institut für Neue Materialien
  1. Spore-Based Biocomposite Thermoplastic Polyesters with Enhanced Toughness and Programmable Disintegration.
  2. 3D-Bioprinted Marine Bacteria for the Degradation of Polyhydroxybutyrate Bioplastics.
  3. Implantable living materials autonomously deliver therapeutics using contained engineered bacteria.
  4. Programmable living therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy.
  5. Genetically Modified Lactic Acid Bacteria in the EU Food Chain: Applications, Benefits, and Risk Assessment.
  6. Using the nose as a factory to secrete proteins into the lungs or circulation.
  1. bioRxiv. 2026 Feb 26. pii: 2026.02.24.707801. [Epub ahead of print]
    Spore-Based Biocomposite Thermoplastic Polyesters with Enhanced Toughness and Programmable Disintegration.
    Han Sol Kim, Emily Fan, Arthi Chandra, Evangeline Meyler, Joanne Tang, Myung Hyun Noh, Adam M Feist, Jonathan K Pokorski.
      Thermoplastic polyesters are widely used in commodity and high-performance applications due to their tunable and exceptional properties, versatile performance, and increasing relevance in sustainable materials. Integrating biological functionality into these polymers offers a promising route to enhance performance and end-of-life behavior beyond what conventional additives can achieve. Here, we report the generalization of an embedded spore-based engineered living material concept to three representative thermoplastic polyesters; polycaprolactone (PCL), polylactic acid (PLA), and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT). Heat-shock-tolerized Bacillus subtilis spores were compounded with each polyester as a living biofiller via hot melt extrusion. The resulting biocomposite polyesters retained high spore viability (>90%) after extrusion and exhibited improved mechanical performance (up to 41% toughness improvement compared to neat polymers). End-of-life behavior was evaluated in a microbially-limited composting environment, where spore-containing PCL exhibited nearly complete disintegration within five months, corresponding to a ∼7-fold increase in degradation kinetics relative to neat PCL. Finally, 3D printing of biocomposite PCL was demonstrated through fused deposition modeling and direct ink writing methodologies. Together, this work demonstrated the successful extension of spore-based engineered living materials from thermoplastic polyurethane to multiple thermoplastic polyesters.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.02.24.707801
  2. ACS Appl Polym Mater. 2026 May 08. 8(9): 6086-6100
    3D-Bioprinted Marine Bacteria for the Degradation of Polyhydroxybutyrate Bioplastics.
    Luying He, Hongyi Cai, Ram S Gona, Tiana C Rohe, Manasi Subhash Gangan, Timothy Lai, Diana R Sullivan, Meredith N Silberstein, Anne S Meyer.
      The severe, long-lasting harm caused by plastic pollution to marine ecosystems and coastal economies has led to the development of biodegradable plastics; however, their limited decomposition in marine environments remains a challenge. Here, technologies are presented for creating 3D-bioprinted living materials as a proof of concept for bioplastic degradation, with specific use in marine environments. The approach developed here integrates the halotolerant bioplastic-degrading bacterium Bacillus sp. NRRL B-14911 into alginate-based bio-ink to print an engineered living material (ELM) termed a "bio-sticker." Quantification of bacteria viability reveals that bioprinted marine bacteria survive within biostickers for more than 3 weeks. The rate at which the biostickers degrade the bioplastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) can be tuned by altering biosticker biomass concentration, bioplastic concentration, or incubation temperature. Biostickers that are transferred to a different PHB sample still retain high biodegradation activity, demonstrating their reusability. Strain sweep oscillatory tests demonstrate that the biostickers display predominantly viscoelastic behavior. Monotonic tensile tests indicate that the elastic modulus and the adhesion of the biostickers are not negatively impacted by bacteria growth or incubation temperature. This work paves the way for the development of ELMs to facilitate the inclusion of bioplastics within the blue economy, promoting the emergence of more sustainable and eco-friendly materials.
    Keywords:  3D bioprinting; biodegradable plastics; bioplastic-degrading bacteria; engineered living materials; marine debris
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.5c03370
  3. Science. 2026 May 14. 392(6799): 729-734
    Implantable living materials autonomously deliver therapeutics using contained engineered bacteria.
    Tetsuhiro Harimoto, Fernando Herrero Quevedo, Janis Zillig, Sanjay Schreiber, Yi Wu, Christine Heera Ahn, Tania To, Rohan Thakur, Alexander M Tatara, Shawn Kang, Zheqi Chen, Nuria Lafuente-Gómez, Blake Hanan, Alexander Pauer, Shanda Lightbown, David A Weitz, David J Mooney.
      Microbes are increasingly used as living therapeutics, yet their uncontrolled dissemination in the body has remained a clinical roadblock. Physical containment remains largely unattainable owing to eventual bacteria escape. In this work, we present an implantable material that encapsulates and confines bacteria, wherein synthetically engineered microbes produce therapeutic payloads from within. We developed a hydrogel scaffold with dual mechanical features: high stiffness to regulate bacterial proliferation and high toughness to resist material fracture under physiological stress. This design achieved complete bacterial containment for 6 months and withstood multiple forms of mechanical loading that otherwise caused catastrophic material failure. By genetically engineering embedded bacteria, we endowed the material with environmental sensing and on-demand therapeutic release capabilities and demonstrated autonomous treatment in a murine prosthetic joint infection model.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aec2071
  4. Cell Chem Biol. 2026 May 11. pii: S2451-9456(26)00142-X. [Epub ahead of print]
    Programmable living therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy.
    Zhenqiang Deng, Lingxue Niu, Zhihao Wang, Yiyu Jin, Zhiyuan Yao, Hang Wan, Ningzi Guan, Haifeng Ye.
      Synthetic biology is reshaping cancer immunotherapy by enabling living therapeutics that sense, compute, and act within tumors. This review categorizes recent advances across three modalities: engineered CAR-T cells, oncolytic bacteria, and oncolytic viruses. For CAR-T cells, small-molecule-, physical-cue-, and tumor-marker-responsive switches enable reversible, dose-dependent, and spatiotemporally confined activation. Engineered bacteria integrate quorum sensing and tumor-microenvironment-responsive logic to control intratumoral colonization, lysis timing, and payload release while limiting systemic exposure. Oncolytic viruses are reprogrammed with tumor-selective promoters, miRNA target modules, and retargeted capsids/ligands to restrict replication, enhance immune stimulation, and improve infection specificity. We further discuss key challenges and future directions toward clinical realization, including circuit complexity, targeting precision, chassis optimization, and cross-platform synergy. Collectively, living therapeutics engineered with synthetic circuits represent a rapidly advancing strategy for precise and safe cancer immunotherapy, with growing potential for clinical translation.
    Keywords:  CAR-T; cancer immunotherapy; oncolytic bacterial; oncolytic viruses; synthetic genetic switches; synthetic immunology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2026.04.007
  5. Int J Mol Sci. 2026 Apr 23. pii: 3759. [Epub ahead of print]27(9):
    Genetically Modified Lactic Acid Bacteria in the EU Food Chain: Applications, Benefits, and Risk Assessment.
    Mirco Vacca, Francesco Maria Calabrese, Pasquale Filannino, Maria De Angelis.
      Genetically modified (GM) lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are gaining attention as tools for innovation in the food sector, health applications, and industrial processes. LAB have long been used safely due to their GRAS/QPS status, making them suitable for improving fermentation and synthesizing specific and beneficial metabolites. Advances in genomics and gene editing have significantly expanded the available tools, ranging from classical mutagenesis to site-specific recombination, homologous recombination in non-coding regions, CRISPR-based systems, and food-grade chromosomal integration. These approaches enable the insertion of desired genes and the development of engineered strains with tailored functionalities. GM-LAB are also being studied as live delivery systems for therapeutic molecules, including cytokines, hormones, antimicrobial peptides, and vaccine antigens. Engineered strains of Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus spp. have yielded promising outcomes in applications such as mucosal immunization, modulation of inflammatory and metabolic responses, and inhibition of pathogenic microorganisms, including multidrug-resistant bacteria. From an industrial perspective, several studies highlight their potential for cost-effective recombinant protein production and the synthesis of high-value metabolites through fermentation. However, within the European Union, their use is subject to stringent regulatory oversight, requiring comprehensive molecular and environmental risk assessments, careful evaluation of horizontal gene transfer, and a preference for markerless chromosomal integrations. Despite these constraints, GM-LAB offer significant potential to improve food quality, sustainability, and human health.
    Keywords:  EU regulation; genetically modified microorganisms; genome editing; lactic acid bacteria; new breeding techniques; probiotic engineering; risk assessment; synthetic biology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms27093759
  6. Mol Ther Adv. 2026 Jun 11. 34(2): 201733
    Using the nose as a factory to secrete proteins into the lungs or circulation.
    Anthony Sinadinos, Robyn Bell, Claudia Ivette Juarez-Molina, Cuixiang Meng, Emily Castells, Mariana A Viegas, Deborah R Gill, Stephen C Hyde, Uta Griesenbach, Eric W F W Alton.
      Targeting of the nasal epithelium for sustained therapeutic protein secretion represents a potential non-invasive lentiviral vector application strategy. Using reporter imaging, molecular, and radiopharmaceutical tracing methods in mice, we have developed an intranasal (nose-only) dosing strategy with a Sendai virus envelope glycoprotein pseudotyped lentiviral vector (rSIV.F/HN). Using multiple (up to 10) small-volume (5 μL) intranasal bolus applications, a technetium radiotracer showed >90% liquid retention in the murine head and <1% in the lung. Following vector administration, transgene expression was dose-related in the nose, with minimal lung expression. No acute nasal toxicity was associated with nose-only delivery. Next, we compared levels of a secreted protein, Gaussia luciferase (Gluc), in the airways and serum after nose-only and intravenous administration of rSIV.F/HN-Gluc (2e8 TU/mouse). Gluc expression in the nose and lungs was higher following nose-only versus intravenous administration. Serum levels were similar after either route of administration. Finally, nose-only delivery of rSIV.F/HN encoding granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) led to sufficient lung levels of this therapeutic protein to correct disease biomarkers in a mouse model of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. We conclude that non-invasive administration of a lentiviral vector to the nasal epithelium provides a safe and convenient route for secreted protein production and is readily translatable into humans.
    Keywords:  gene therapy; lentiviral vector; nose; nose-as-factory; pulmonary alveolar proteinosis; secreted protein
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omta.2026.201733
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