BIOGEM · Developing a circular and sustainable fabrication process for biologically-based electronic materials inspired from cable bacteria

To circularly produce sustainable electronics, we need radical material and production innovations. Sourcing inspiration from the biological world could allow the creation of soft, biodegradable materials adaptable to interfaces with humans in bioelectronic devices. A recently discovered model, the cable bacterium, produces long filaments from its own natural, renewable biosynthetic pathway that conduct electricity at high levels never before seen in biology. Very recent discoveries have identified the principal source of conductivity as a biologically unique metallic cofactor, made from nickel-sulfur nanostructures. As it has never yet been seen in nature, little is known about its synthetic and assembly pathway in the cell. The project, BIOGEM (biosynthesis of a highly conductive material for green electronic materials), will have as objective to harness the biosynthetic pathway of cable bacteria to reproduce it in a synthetic system. To reach this ambitious goal, several knowledge gaps must be filled. The mechanism of the nickel-sulfur nanoribbon assembly will be observed through electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The biological scaffold involved in the metal's assembly will be identified through genomics and proteomics. Last, antibody dyes will be used to localize proteins involved in the assembly, and their individual expression in heterologous organisms will help us build a bottom-up approach to understanding the entire biosynthesis pathway and produce nanowires in systems with scalable potential.