Testing living cells’ influence on nanostructure growth
Tiny yeast samples are being
tested outside the International Space
Station fully exposed to cosmic radiation
and the vacuum of outer space.
Far above us, arrays of single-cell creatures
are circling Earth in nanostructures.
The devices are riding on the International
Space Station to test whether nanostructures
whose formations were directed by
yeast and other single cells can create
more secure homes for their occupants
— even in the vacuum and radiation of
outer space — than those created by more
standard chemical procedures. The ride is
courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories,
the University of New Mexico, NASA,
and the U.S. Air Force.
“Cheap, tiny, and very lightweight
sensors of chemical or biological agents
could be made from long-lived cells that
require no upkeep, yet sense and then
communicate effectively with each other
and their external environment,” says
Sandia consultant Helen Baca, lead author
on a paper about the experiments published
July 21 in Science. Sandia Fellow
and UNM professor Jeff Brinker advised
Baca on the project, which was part of her
doctoral research.
Groups of such long-lived cells may
serve as models to investigate how tuberculosis
bacteria survive long periods of
dormancy within human bodies and they
may be used to generate signals to repel
harmful bacteria from the surfaces of surgical
tools. The experiment may also offer
a simple way to genetically modify cells.
Customized construction
In the paper in Science, Baca explains
that a team of researchers from Sandia and
UNM, under Brinker’s leadership, demonstrated
that common yeast cells (as well as
bacterial and some mammalian cells) customize
the construction of nanocompartments
built for them. These nanocompartments
— imagine a kind of tiny apartment
house — form when single cells are added
to a clear, aqueous solution of silica and
phospholipids (cell membrane molecules),
and the slurry is then dried on a surface.
A quarterly research and development magazine.