There’s an old saying: don’t reinvent the wheel, yet in the pursuit of Next-Generation Materials, we often try to recreate life from scratch. Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) seek to harness the power of living systems, but most biohybrid approaches rely on bacteria or synthetic biology, struggling with scale and complexity of life. Meanwhile, the most efficient biomanufacturers, plants are often overlooked.
Wood, one of nature’s most sophisticated materials, is already an engineered masterpiece but when harvested, it is functionally dead. The cambium layer of a tree, composed of living cells that build wood layer by layer, meets nearly all the criteria of an ELM, yet its potential remains untapped. Their natural totipotency carries the entire programming instructors with a single cell, while gathering all their resources In Situ from air and water. Instead of reinventing biology, we should be asking: how do we bring wood back to life?
This research explores the integration of living woody plant cells into abiotic scaffolds, creating hybrid materials that self-assemble, grow, and adapt over time. By leveraging the morphogenic potential of plant cells, we can guide and program structural growth, forming unprecedented architectures beyond what occurs in nature. Unlike traditional wood, this biohybrid system would be responsive, self-repairing, and capable of long-term function expanding the boundaries of ELMs and biofabrication.
By merging plant biology with material science, this work aims to redefine biohybrid design, shifting from passive biomimicry to active biological integration. The plasticity and agency of plant cells once constrained by evolution can now be engineered for the future of adaptive materials.