Engineered living materials (May 4-7, 2021).

Abstract

The second virtual conference of Engineered Living Materials took place on May 4–7, 2021. The conference aimed to bridge material science, biophysics, and synthetic biology to create composite materials constituting living cells augmented with non-living matter. These novel innovations have broad-based applications, such as textiles, mass manufacturing, and clinical therapeutics. Living materials hold vast potential for programmable functions and is a promising means of shaping the ways we approach the design and fabrication of clinically relevant devices.