BME Lecture Series (Zoom): Seu Sim, UC Irvine

Seminar via Zoom: https://uci.zoom.us/j/95793683749

Living composite materials: living cells, polymer scaffolds, and engineered proteins

Abstract: Living cells possess ideal attributes for creating emergent materials: they can assemble, communicate, adapt to variable environments, and can be programmed to perform novel functions with tools from synthetic biology. The next step to bring the innovation in synthetic biology to the realm of materials science would be to rationally build composite materials with living cells, understand the interaction between each component, and find design principles for developing a platform technology. In this talk, I will introduce two different types of living composite materials comprising cells, polymeric scaffold and engineered proteins. I have developed film-type LCMs wherein the artificial protein networks are synthesized by constituent living cells in situ and mechanically reinforce the entire material, and 3D-printable LCMs that can produce and elute proteins of interest. I will also briefly discuss how these results will accelerate the development of the functional biomaterials.

Bio: Seu Sim is an assistant professor of chemistry at UC Irvine. She graduated from Seoul National University with undergraduate degrees in chemistry and biological sciences. She worked with Professor Takuzo Aida as a JSPS and MERIT fellow at the University of Tokyo and received her doctorate in chemistry and biotechnology. For her postdoctoral training, she worked with Professor David Tirrell at Caltech as a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow. The Sim laboratory aims to develop strategies to incorporate living cells as a functional building block for novel materials and bridge macromolecular chemistry, bioengineering and materials science. For more information: s-simlab.com.