2022 Seed: Controlling Supramolecular Polymerization by Living Electrogenic Bacteria

The main objective of this research project is to construct supramolecular materials interacting with electrogenic bacterial cells and elucidate how bioelectricity dynamically interacts with supramolecular polymers (Figure a).

The expected outcome of this research is novel dynamic supramolecular dissipative systems controlled by electrogenic bacteria, S. oneidensis.

The outcome during the reporting period are the followings:

  • Establishing that EET and oxygen can be harnessed for dissipative supramolecular systems (Figure a–f).
  • Establishing the anaerobic culture conditions and biological reduction workflow with S. oneidensis (Figure b)
  • Confirming the central hypothesis that S. oneidensis EET can reduce various molecular motifs useful for supramolecular construction of polymers (Figure c)
  • Design and synthesis of supramolecular aggregates responsive to EET (Figure d–f)

UCI MRSEC 2011967 Seed Sim Supramolecular Polymerization using Electrogenic Bacteria

H. Jo, A. Bartnik, E. Kim, S. Sim (University of California, Irvine)