Unlike an unstructured liquid medium, the gel acts as a scaffold for the cells to grow in a particular shape. In this case, the plant cells themselves do the printing with the aid of the gel growth medium. Velásquez-García sees this work as an extension of his lab’s focus on microfabrication and additive manufacturing techniques like 3D printing. “You can visually evaluate which cells are becoming lignified, and you can measure enlargement and elongation of cells.” This procedure demonstrated that plant cells can be used in a controlled production process, resulting in a material optimized for a particular purpose. Beckwith says she assessed the cellular composition and structure of the final product using fluorescence microscopy. By varying the levels of these hormones in the gel, they controlled the cells’ production of lignin, an organic polymer that lends wood its firmness. The researchers coaxed the cells to grow a rigid, wood-like structure using a mix of two plant hormones called auxin and cytokinin. “Plant cells are similar to stem cells in the sense that they can become anything if they are induced to.” Next, they transferred the cells into a gel and “tuned” them, explains Velásquez-García. The team cultured the cells in a liquid growth medium, allowing them to metabolize and proliferate. They started with a zinnia plant, extracting live cells from its leaves. The researchers grew wood-like plant tissue indoors, without soil or sunlight. “I wanted to find a more efficient way to use land and resources so that we could let more arable areas remain wild, or to remain lower production but allow for greater biodiversity.” So, she brought plant production into the lab. “That got me thinking: Can we be more strategic about what we’re getting out of our process? Can we get more yield for our inputs?” Beckwith says. Plus, only a fraction of the harvested plant is actually used for food or materials production. She observed a number of inefficiencies inherent to agriculture - some can be managed, like fertilizer draining off fields, while others are completely out of the farmer’s control, like weather and seasonality. Coauthors are Beckwith’s co-advisors Velásquez-García, a principal scientist in MIT’s Microsystems technology Laboratories, and Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.īeckwith says she’s always been fascinated by plants, and inspiration for this project struck when she recently spent time on a farm. Ashley Beckwith is lead author and a PhD student in mechanical engineering. The paper will be published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. “This is a real chance to bypass all that inefficiency.” “The way we get these materials hasn’t changed in centuries and is very inefficient,” says Velásquez-García. While that’s still a long way from growing a table, the work provides a possible starting point for novel approaches to biomaterials production that ease the environmental burden of forestry and agriculture. The team demonstrated the concept by growing structures made of wood-like cells from an initial sample of cells extracted from zinnia leaves. Still in its early stages, the idea is akin in some ways to cultured meat - an opportunity to streamline the production of biomaterials. Researchers in Velásquez-García’s group have proposed a way to grow certain plant tissues, such as wood and fiber, in a lab. Luis Fernando Velásquez-García suggests a simpler solution: “If you want a table, then you should just grow a table.” Grow a tree, cut it down, transport it, mill it … you get the point.
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