Engineered living materials

Welcome to the 1st iteration of this course on Engineered Living Materials (ELMs).

In this 3 ECTS course, we aim to give you an overview of the exciting and emerging field of ELM research.  We will accomplish this through studying cutting-edge research in the field, lab activities, and assignments that will ask you to think out of the box. At the same time, in this course you will further develop your critical thinking, writing, and communication skills.

The grading scheme is as follows:

3 short assignments: 1 point

1 poster assignment: 2.5 points

Final written report: 2.5 points

Our main way of communicating with you is through the Moodle site, but we are also available for office hours on Tuesdays and during the course exercise sessions should any questions arise. For anything urgent, please email.

TAs:

Buse Tatli (buse.tatli@epfl.ch)

Yuki Hayashi (yuki.hayashi@epfl.ch)

Prof:

Tiffany Abitbol (tiffany.abitbol@epfl.ch)

On Sept 23, Professor Neel Joshi will give a talk as part of EPFL's IMX Seminar Series. 

The seminars run from 13:15-14:15 in MXF 1.

 For those of you interested in ELM's I highly recommend that you attend. 

To prepare for this exciting seminar, in class this week (Sept 17), we will explore published literature from the Joshi group. 

Check out the Joshi group website at Northeastern:

https://neel-joshi.sites.northeastern.edu/research/engineered-living-materials/

To prepare for this lesson and for seminar series, please read the papers in the resources folder - we will focus on the 2024 paper in Matter (so prioritize this reading). Depending on time, we will cover the second article either this week or next.

First hour will be a guest lecture by Dr. Hirsch:

Topic: Controlling the calcium carbonate microstructure of engineered living building materials

Speaker bio: After obtaining his PhD in Materials Science at EPFL, Matteo joined the Sustainable Materials Laboratory to work on novel alternatives to replace conventional inks for packaging. He has a strong background in soft matter and advanced manufacturing. Whenever he is not in the lab, Matteo enjoys playing volleyball and finding treasures in flea markets.

If you want to prepare for Matteo's lecture, you can read his article, which can be found in the weekly "Reading" folder.

In the 2nd hour, I will present the second Joshi paper, "Mechanically Tunable, Compostable, Healable, and Scalable Engineered Living Materials". This article can be found in the weekly "Reading" folder. Please read in advance.

On Oct 14, Professor Mark Tibbitt will give a talk as part of EPFL's IMX Seminar Series. 

The seminars run from 13:15-14:15 in MXF 1.

 For those of you interested in ELM's I highly recommend that you attend. 

To prepare for this exciting seminar, in class this week (Oct 8), we will explore published literature from the Tibbitt group. 

Check out the Tibbitt group website at ETH-Zurich:

https://macro.ethz.ch/the-group.html

Topic: Wood and microbes: A Complicated Relationship

Speaker Bio: Guido Panzarasa received his PhD in Chemical Sciences in 2016 from the University of Eastern Piedmont “Amedeo Avogadro” (Italy). In 2018 he joined ETH Zürich as a postdoc in Prof. Eric Dufresne’s group (Department of Materials), where he started to explore the synergies between systems chemistry and materials science aiming to develop chemically-programmable life-mimicking materials. In 2020 he was promoted group leader in the Wood Materials Science Laboratory (Prof. Ingo Burgert, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering) and his research focus drifted towards sustainability, green chemistry and functional wood materials.

1st half of class: Bioplastics

2nd half of class: Antifouling membranes

On Dec 9, Professor Meital Reches will give a talk as part of EPFL's IMX Seminar Series. 

The seminars run from 13:15-14:15 in MXF 1.

 For those of you interested in ELM's I highly recommend that you attend. 

To prepare for this exciting seminar, in class this week (Dec 2), we will explore published literature from the Reches group. 

In our final week of classes, we will have short presentations (20-25 min) from PhD students in EPFL's Sustainable Materials Laboratory:

https://www.epfl.ch/labs/sml/

Take the opportunity to learn from students about what they are researching and why they think the work they are doing is important. Learn from your peers and ask them questions!