SIMMS · Swimming-Induced Mechanoresponsive Material Stigmergy
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-12-01 → 2024-11-30
- EU contribution
- €207,312
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Swimming-Induced Mechanoresponsive Material Stigmergy
At high densities, many organisms begin to exhibit collective motion, such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, and, on a microscopic scale, swimming microorganisms. These microorganisms are ubiquitous, existing within humans, in soils, and in industrial environments, and they form remarkable patterns at sufficiently high densities. The collective motion of these microorganisms is described as a "living liquid," which moves chaotically, often called bacterial turbulence, on a collective length and timescale. Like a conventional liquid, the container or environment, e.g., a box or a pipe, influences the flow and dynamics of this living liquid. However, many biological systems exist in soft, pliable environments where the living liquid can actively reshape its surroundings. This interaction suggests a two-way relationship: the living liquid influences the environment, and the environment, in turn, affects the liquid's behavior. SIMMS aimed to investigate these mutual interactions, as understanding these dynamics could lead to innovative applications, such as regulating bacterial activity to enhance bio-degradation, prevent contamination, and combat infections. The project explored three initial environments: bacteria in porous media, bacterial colonies at soft interfaces, and bacteria in responsive gels. Throughout the project, multiple instances of indirect coordination between bacteria and their material environments were observed, paving the way for exciting new research into multi-scale self-organized complexity in biological materials.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Boundaries govern the hydrodynamics of swimming microbes, both affecting individual and collective motion. However, in vivo circumstances are vastly more perplexing because biological surroundings are adaptive. While previous work has productively considered complications to individual swimmer dynamics, it has neglected mechanoreciprocity, the bi-directional relationship between cells and their material surroundings. This research program proposes that the collective dynamics exhibited by swimming bacteria play a presently overlooked role in restructuring their material surroundings as active “ecosystem engineers.” This proposal seeks to uncover whether the active hydrodynamic stresses due to the collective motion of many motile microbes can be sufficient to mechanically induce structural changes to their material environments. Crucially, this will, in turn, modify swimmer dynamics, creating a reciprocal relationship between the microbes and their surroundings. Thus, this research program seeks to establish the new research direction of Swimming-Induced Mechanoresponsive Material Stigmergy (SIMMS). Through a series of coarse-grained particle-based numerical simulations of many swimming microbes and their pliable surrounding, this proposal will try to find evidence of mechanoreciprocity due to active hydrodynamic stresses generated by collective bacterial flows. Activity-driven restructuring of responsive micro-environments would not only represent an embodiment of biophysical multi-scale self-organised complexity, but also open pathways for regulating bacteria dynamics to aid biodegradation, hinder contamination and combat medical infections.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union