In an effort to offer a ecologically friendly and low-waste option, researchers at MIT have pioneered a tunable technique to produce wood-like plant product in a laboratory, which could enable someone to “grow” a wood product like a table without needing to cut down trees, process lumber, and so on.
These researchers have actually now shown that, by changing particular chemicals used throughout the growth process, they can exactly control the physical and mechanical properties of the resulting plant material, such as its stiffness and density.
They also reveal that, utilizing 3D bioprinting techniques, they can grow plant product fits, sizes, and forms that are not discovered in nature which cant be quickly produced using standard agricultural techniques.
In an effort to supply a environmentally friendly and low-waste option, researchers at MIT have originated a tunable strategy to produce wood-like plant product in a laboratory. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
” The idea is that you can grow these plant materials in exactly the shape that you require, so you do not need to do any subtractive production after the reality, which minimizes the amount of energy and waste. There is a lot of potential to expand this and grow three-dimensional structures,” states lead author Ashley Beckwith, a current PhD graduate.
Still in its early days, this research study demonstrates that lab-grown plant products can be tuned to have specific qualities, which might someday enable researchers to grow wood products with the precise functions required for a particular application, like high strength to support the walls of a home or specific thermal homes to more effectively heat a space, describes senior author Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a primary researcher in MITs Microsystems Technology Laboratories.
Signing Up With Beckwith and Velásquez-García on the paper is Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer and group leader at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. The research study is released just recently in the journal Materials Today.
Planting cells
To begin the process of growing plant material in the lab, the researchers initially isolate cells from the leaves of young Zinnia elegans plants. The cells are cultured in liquid medium for two days, then moved to a gel-based medium, which contains nutrients and two various hormonal agents.
Adjusting the hormonal agent levels at this stage while doing so allows scientists to tune the physical and mechanical homes of the plant cells that grow because nutrient-rich broth.
” In the body, you have hormonal agents that identify how your cells establish and how specific traits emerge. In the same method, by altering the hormone concentrations in the nutrient broth, the plant cells react differently. Just by controling these tiny chemical amounts, we can elicit pretty significant modifications in regards to the physical results,” Beckwith states.
In such a way, these growing plant cells act almost like stem cells– scientists can provide hints to inform them what to become, Velásquez-Garcían adds.
They utilize a 3D printer to extrude the cell culture gel service into a specific structure in a petri meal, and let it incubate in the dark for 3 months. Even with this incubation duration, the researchers process is about two orders of magnitude much faster than the time it considers a tree to grow to maturity, Velásquez-García states.
Following incubation, the resulting cell-based product is dehydrated, and then the scientists evaluate its properties.
Wood-like characteristics
They found that lower hormone levels yielded plant materials with more rounded, open cells that have lower density, while higher hormonal agent levels caused the development of plant materials with smaller sized, denser cell structures. Greater hormonal agent levels also yielded plant material that was stiffer; the scientists had the ability to grow plant material with a storage modulus (tightness) comparable to that of some natural woods.
Another goal of this work is to study what is called lignification in these lab-grown plant products. Lignin is a polymer that is transferred in the cell walls of plants that makes them rigid and woody. They discovered that greater hormonal agent levels in the growth medium causes more lignification, which would cause plant material with more wood-like homes.
The researchers also demonstrated that, utilizing a 3D bioprinting procedure, the plant product can be grown in a customized shape and size. Instead of utilizing a mold, the procedure includes the use of a customizable computer-aided design file that is fed to a 3D bioprinter, which transfers the cell gel culture into a particular shape. For example, they were able to grow plant material in the shape of a tiny evergreen tree.
Research study of this kind is reasonably new, Borenstein says.
” This work shows the power that a technology at the user interface in between engineering and biology can offer on an ecological challenge, leveraging advances originally established for healthcare applications,” he includes.
The scientists also show that the cell cultures can make it through and continue to grow for months after printing, and that using a thicker gel to produce thicker plant product structures does not impact the survival rate of the lab-grown cells.
” Amenable to modification”
” I believe the real chance here is to be optimum with what you utilize and how you utilize it. There are mechanical expectations to consider if you want to develop an item that is going to serve some function. This process is truly amenable to customization,” Velásquez-García says.
Now that they have demonstrated the reliable tunability of this strategy, the scientists wish to continue exploring so they can better comprehend and control cellular development. They likewise wish to explore how other chemical and hereditary aspects can direct the growth of the cells.
They want to evaluate how their technique might be transferred to a new types. Zinnia plants do not produce wood, however if this technique were used to make a commercially essential tree types, like pine, the process would need to be customized to that types, Velásquez-García states.
Eventually, he is hopeful this work can assist to encourage other groups to dive into this location of research to help lower deforestation.
” Trees and forests are a remarkable tool for helping us handle climate change, so being as tactical as we can with these resources will be a societal necessity moving forward,” Beckwith includes.
Recommendation: “Physical, mechanical, and microstructural characterization of unique, 3D-printed, tunable, lab-grown plant products generated from Zinnia elegans cell cultures” by Ashley L. Beckwith, Jeffrey T. Borenstein and Luis F. Velásquez-García, 7 March 2022,. DOI: 10.1016/ j.mattod.2022.02.012.
This research study is funded, in part, by the Draper Scholars Program.
In the same method, by changing the hormonal agent concentrations in the nutrient broth, the plant cells react in a different way. Another goal of this work is to study what is known as lignification in these lab-grown plant materials. They found that higher hormonal agent levels in the development medium triggers more lignification, which would lead to plant product with more wood-like properties.
The researchers likewise demonstrated that, utilizing a 3D bioprinting process, the plant product can be grown in a customized shape and size. They were able to grow plant material in the shape of a tiny evergreen tree.
Researchers demonstrate that they can manage the homes of lab-grown plant product, which could allow the production of wood items with little waste.
The world loses about 10 million hectares of forest– a location about the size of Iceland– each year since of logging. At that rate, some scientists anticipate the worlds forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years.
A hectare is an area equivalent to a square with 100-meter sides, or 10,000 m2, and is mostly used in the measurement of land. One hectare includes about 2.47 acres and an acre has to do with 0.405 hectares. 100 hectares makes one square kilometer.