Biohybrid Micromachines

Dear Colleagues,

From its ambitious beginning in metabolic engineering and biotechnology, synthetic biology has blossomed to encompass many aspects of bioengineering and continues to attract practitioners from a diverse range of disciplines. This interdisciplinary, and in fact transdisciplinary, field endeavours to bring together scientists, engineers, and even laypersons from diverse backgrounds. Each collaborative project seeks to create new tools for extracting knowledge and addressing biomedical problems, while also looking to examine biological systems for inspiration.

Two strategies have broadly guided these projects—the top-down and bottom-up approaches. When applied to structural studies, the top-down approach can allow us to define the structure–function relationship underlying various biological phenomena of interest. Through the purification and exploitation of extant biological structures, we can elucidate the structural components, as well as principles, that allow these events to occur. These phenomena include receptor-mediated endocytosis, motility, inter-cell communication, pathogen–host communication, etc.

This, in turn, allows us to design systems that emulate such behaviour using both natural and synthetic materials. Such systems would have uses as diverse as targeted drug delivery, pathogen capture, biosensing, etc.

These methods begin with live cells as a source of material or structure for synthesising functional biological constructs. They include works such as the construction of minimal genomes, the creation of proteoliposome-like systems from the evisceration and enucleation of cells, the use of cell membrane fragments to decorate synthetic vesicles, the fusion of extant biological systems with complex synthetic components, etc. There are also approaches that begin with whole cells solely as sources of material, i.e., cell derivatives, for use in bottom-up techniques. The extraction of lipids and proteins from microbial membranes of interest and their reconstitution into model membranes exemplifies this.

In this Special Issue, entitled Biohybrid Micromachines, we aim to highlight approaches that start with living cells as a source of both coarse and fine material for the production of artificial cells, protocells, and functional hybrid systems. We invite submissions that include original research articles, critical and tutorial reviews, technical reports, and perspectives. Please help us in creating a collection that will guide the next generation of synthetic biologists.

Dr. Cherng-Wen Darren Tan
Dr. Bernhard Schuster
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• biofabrication
• autopoiesis
• biomachines
• artificial organelles
• minimal cells
• novel treatments
• targeted delivery
• ghost cells
• proteoliposomes
• proteopolymersomes