MIT has taken the first steps towards turning plants into functional lighting by embedding the

firefly enzyme in the leaves of a watercress plant.

By introducing specialised nanoparticles into leaves, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology have created plants that can glow for nearly four hours.
It is a breakthrough that the university claims could allow house plants to be used as low-
intensity indoor lighting and trees to act as self-powered streetlights.
Method could be used on any plant
To create the glow, the plants were impregnated with a solution that combines luciferase –
the enzyme that gives fireflies their glow – which reacted within the plant's leaves.
The result is a dim light that lasts for around three and a half hours. The method can be used
on any type of plant, and has so far, been tested on arugula, kale, and spinach, in addition to
watercress.

Currently a 10-centimetre long glowing watercress seedling can only emit about one-
thousandth of the amount of light needed to read by. However, the engineers working on the
university's plant nanobionics programme believe that with further optimisation, glowing
plants could function as light fixtures bright enough to illuminate a workspace.
Vision for plants that work "as a desk lamp"
"The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp – a lamp that you don’t have
to plug in," said Michael Strano, senior author of the study and Carbon P Dubbs professor of
chemical engineering at MIT.
"The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself," he added.
"Plants can self-repair, they have their own energy, and they are already adapted to the
outdoor environment. We think this is an idea whose time has come. It's a perfect problem for
plant nanobionics."
MIT is now working to further optimise and fine tune the concentration and release rates of
the components, to further boost the brightness and duration of the light.

In the future, the researchers also hope to develop a way to paint or spray the nanoparticles
onto plant leaves, which could make it possible to transform trees and other large plants into
light sources.
"Our target is to perform one treatment when the plant is a seedling or a mature plant, and
have it last for the lifetime of the plant," Strano said. "Our work very seriously opens up the
doorway to street lamps that are nothing but treated trees, and to indirect lighting around
homes."
By adding nanoparticles carrying a luciferase inhibitor, the researchers believe it will be
possible to turn the light off. This could lead to the creation of plants that can respond to
environmental conditions such as sunlight, and stop emitting light.
Plants can also be engineered to detect explosives
The university's plant nanobionics group is also investigating other ways plants can be
engineered to replace functions currently performed by electrical devices.
Funded by the US Department of Energy the group is embedding plants with different types
of nanoparticles to develop plants that can detect explosives and plants that can monitor
drought conditions.
Back in 2014, Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde made the same prediction as the MIT
engineers when he told Dezeen that in the future glowing trees could be used "instead of
street lighting".
At the time, the designer was exploring ways of using bio-luminescent bacteria found in
jellyfish and mushrooms to create glow-in-the-dark vegetation.

Anne Trafton | MIT News Office

December 12, 2017
Press Inquiries
SHARE

COMMENT

Imagine that instead of switching on a lamp when it gets dark, you could
read by the light of a glowing plant on your desk.
MIT engineers have taken a critical first step toward making that vision a
reality. By embedding specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of a
watercress plant, they induced the plants to give off dim light for nearly four
hours. They believe that, with further optimization, such plants will one day
be bright enough to illuminate a workspace.
“The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp — a lamp
that you don’t have to plug in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy
metabolism of the plant itself,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs
Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the
study.
This technology could also be used to provide low-intensity indoor lighting,
or to transform trees into self-powered streetlights, the researchers say.
MIT postdoc Seon-Yeong Kwak is the lead author of the study, which
appears in the journal Nano Letters.
Nanobionic plants
Plant nanobionics, a new research area pioneered by Strano’s lab, aims to give
plants novel features by embedding them with different types of nanoparticles. The
group’s goal is to engineer plants to take over many of the functions now performed
by electrical devices. The researchers have previously designed plants that
can detect explosives and communicate that information to a smartphone, as well as
plants that can monitor drought conditions.
Lighting, which accounts for about 20 percent of worldwide energy consumption,
seemed like a logical next target. “Plants can self-repair, they have their own energy,
and they are already adapted to the outdoor environment,” Strano says. “We think
this is an idea whose time has come. It’s a perfect problem for plant nanobionics.”
To create their glowing plants, the MIT team turned to luciferase, the enzyme that
gives fireflies their glow. Luciferase acts on a molecule called luciferin, causing it to
emit light. Another molecule called co-enzyme A helps the process along by
removing a reaction byproduct that can inhibit luciferase activity.
The MIT team packaged each of these three components into a different type of
nanoparticle carrier. The nanoparticles, which are all made of materials that the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration classifies as “generally regarded as safe,” help each
component get to the right part of the plant. They also prevent the components from
reaching concentrations that could be toxic to the plants.
The researchers used silica nanoparticles about 10 nanometers in diameter to carry
luciferase, and they used slightly larger particles of the polymers PLGA and chitosan
to carry luciferin and coenzyme A, respectively. To get the particles into plant leaves,
the researchers first suspended the particles in a solution. Plants were immersed in
the solution and then exposed to high pressure, allowing the particles to enter the
leaves through tiny pores called stomata.
Particles releasing luciferin and coenzyme A were designed to accumulate in the
extracellular space of the mesophyll, an inner layer of the leaf, while the smaller
particles carrying luciferase enter the cells that make up the mesophyll. The PLGA
particles gradually release luciferin, which then enters the plant cells, where
luciferase performs the chemical reaction that makes luciferin glow.
The researchers’ early efforts at the start of the project yielded plants that could glow
for about 45 minutes, which they have since improved to 3.5 hours. The light
generated by one 10-centimeter watercress seedling is currently about one-
thousandth of the amount needed to read by, but the researchers believe they can
boost the light emitted, as well as the duration of light, by further optimizing the
concentration and release rates of the components.
Plant transformation
Previous efforts to create light-emitting plants have relied on genetically engineering
plants to express the gene for luciferase, but this is a laborious process that yields
extremely dim light. Those studies were performed on tobacco plants
and Arabidopsis thaliana, which are commonly used for plant genetic studies.
However, the method developed by Strano’s lab could be used on any type of plant.
So far, they have demonstrated it with arugula, kale, and spinach, in addition to
watercress.
For future versions of this technology, the researchers hope to develop a way to
paint or spray the nanoparticles onto plant leaves, which could make it possible to
transform trees and other large plants into light sources.
“Our target is to perform one treatment when the plant is a seedling or a mature
plant, and have it last for the lifetime of the plant,” Strano says. “Our work very
seriously opens up the doorway to streetlamps that are nothing but treated trees,
and to indirect lighting around homes.”
The researchers have also demonstrated that they can turn the light off by adding
nanoparticles carrying a luciferase inhibitor. This could enable them to eventually
create plants that shut off their light emission in response to environmental
conditions such as sunlight, the researchers say.
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Naučnici rešili da naprave biljke koje svetle u mraku i

koje će u budućnosti biti korišćene za osvetljenje
gradova i kuća
SAN FRANCISKO - Naučnici rešeni da ulične svetiljke pošalju u
istoriju.
Grupa biotehnologa započela je projekat uzgoja biljaka koje noću
svetle. Oni se nadaju da će za nekoliko godina napraviti fluorescentno
drveće koje bi moglo da zameni ulične svetiljke, ali i sobne lampe.

Projekat koji će koristiti sintetičku biologiju privukao je pažnju ne samo

zbog mnogima zastrašujućeg poigravanja s prirodom već i zbog toga što
ga ne sprovode naučnici neke velike kompanije, već grupa biologa koja je
sponzore tražila preko interneta i dosad skupila 250.000 dolara od 4.500
donatora.
Entoni Evans, menadžer projekta, kaže da nema potrebe za strah.

Prvo će svetleti korov

- Ono što mi radimo slično je eksperimentima već sprovedenim u

laboratorijama velikih kompanija u poslednjih 20 godina. Jasno nam je da
mnogi naše istraživanje smatraju kontroverznim, ali je ono bezbedno. Mi
želimo da prvo napravimo biljke koje će svetleti u mraku, ali neće odmah
moći da zamene ulične svetiljke - kaže Evans.
Kajl Tejlor, doktor molekularne i ćelijske biologije, zadužen je rad u
laboratoriji. Prva biljka kojoj će izmeniti gen biće korov Arabidopsis
thaliana, a zatim će pokušati da naprave svetleću ružu.

Enzim luciferaza

- Još ne znamo da li je moguće napraviti svetleće drveće koje je u stanju

da zameni ulične svetiljke. Sve zavisi od toga koliko energije biljka može da
iskoristi za stvaranje svetla, a da ipak nastavi da raste. Moj tim je
proračunao da bi drvo čija je krošnja široka oko deset metara bacao
podjednako mnogo svetla kao i prosečna bandera. Verujem da je ovo
istraživanje nešto što će drastično promeniti svet - kaže Evans.

Inače, naučnici su dosad uspeli da naprave svetleće majmune, mačke,

svinje, pse i crve ubacujući im gene meduze, ali sve te životinje svetlele su
samo kad se ka njima usmeri ultraljubičasto svetlo. Pojedini istraživači
uspeli su da u biljke ubace enzim luciferazu, zahvaljujući kome svetle svici,
ali su biljke sijale samo ako im je dodavana hemikalija luciferin.

Ekolozi: Rizična tehnika

Dve organizacije za zaštitu životne sredine, Prijatelji Zemlje i ETC grupa,

pokušale su da spreče realizaciju ovog projekta. Oni smatraju da bi ovaj
eksperiment mogao dovesti do nekontrolisane pojave semena i biljaka
nastalih u laboratoriji zahvaljujući veoma rizičnoj i kontroverznoj tehnici.

Genetski inženjering: opasnost ili prilika za očuvanje vrsta

O metodama genetskog inženjeringa koje mogu da dovedu do nestanka cele jedne vrste ili spreče neku vrstu da
prenosi bolesti, sve se više govori u naučnom svetu kao mogućnosti za spasavanje pojedinih vrsta. Istovremeno,
raste bojazan zbog razornih posledica koje bi takva metoda mogla da ima na živi svet. To je bila i tema kongresa
Međunarodne unije za očuvanje prirode (IUCN) koji se održava od 1. do 10. septembra u Honoluluu.

Oblast genetskog inženjeringa se razvija velikom brzinom, i sve se više govori o ulozi koju te metode mogu imati
za poboljšanje ljudskog zdravlja ali i o posledicama na floru i faunu.

Najviše kontroverzi nesumnjivo izaziva metoda stimulacije prenosa određenih gena kao dominantnih, što za
posledicu može imati promenu genetskog indentiteta cele vrste ili čak i njen nestanak. Prenošenje dominantnih
gena je prirodnan mehanizam, a ljudi su nedavno otkrili da mogu da ovladaju njime i utiču.

U naučnim krugovima već se vodi rasprava o tome da li bi ova metoda mogla da se koristi za očuvanje vrsta.

Na kongresu IUCN na Havajima neki naučnici su tvrdili da bi to moglo da pomogne spasavanju autohtonih vrsta
ptica na tom arhipelagu, kojima preti izumiranje zbog ptičje malarije.

Naučnici su rekli da se tehnologija "editovanja gena" može upotrebiti kako komarci ne bi više prenosili maraliju:
imunološki sistem insekta izmenio bi se tako da se bori protiv parazita izazivača malarije.

Drugi koncept predviđa dovođenje na ostrva genetski modifikovanih komaraca koje je razvila biotehnološka
kompanija Oksitek (Oxitec), a koji se trenutno koristi u borbi protiv virusa zika u Brazilu.
Muške jedinke komarca su modifikovane tako da sadrže gen "samouništenja" zbog koga njihovo potomstvo ne
može da dosegne zrelo doba. Ti komarci jesu genetski modifikovani, ali nije korišćena metoda stimuplacije
prenošenja dominantnog gena.

Metoda "forsiranja" gena mogla bi da se upotrebi i za iskorenjavanje nekih vrsta, poput štetočina. Naučnici
predlažu da se ova metoda iskoristi za uništavanje invazivnih populacija pacova i miševa na ostrvima, tako što bi
se "dizajnirale" jedinke koje mogu da rađaju samo muške primerke.

Pristalice metode ističu da će ova tehnika omogućiti da se planeta oslobodi pesticida i da je to najbolji način
borbe protiv invazivnih vrsta. Protivnici pak strahuju od nepovratnih posledica koje bi mogla da ima na vrste i
ekosisteme.

Kevin Esvelt, asistent na prestižnom Tehnološkom inistitutu u Masačusetsu (MIT) među prvima je zagovarao
korišćenje metode modifikacije gena CRISPR, ali je ujedno i obazriv po pitaju njenog korišćenja.

"Kao naučnik koji je radio na tome, vrlo sam zabrinut jer smo mi, naučnici, na kraju moralno odgovorni za sve
posledice našeg rada", rekao je on na okruglom stolu održanom u okviru kongresa na Havajima.

On je dodao da bi morala da se zabrani mogućnost rada na genima i tehnikama modifikacija, ako se prethodno o
tome ne obavesti javnost.

"Ako nešto krene po zlu u laboratoriji, to bi moglo da utiče na ljude van nje", rekao je on i dodao da nije dobro to
što stanovništvo nema mogućnost da se izjasni o odluci koja bi mogla da ih se tiče i što sadašnji propisi nisu
stroži.

Drugi naučnici su pozvali da se brzo deluje kako bi se sačuvale ugrožene vrste.

"Jedna od stvari koja nas najviše plaši, jeste da ne bude rešenja za spasavanje ptica na Havajima od malarije",
rekao je Kris Farmer, direktor programa za Havaje Američkog udruženja za očuvanje ptica.

Na tom arhipelagu, već je nestalo 39 vrsta šumskih ptica zbog ptičje malarije, a 21 od preostale 32 vrste je
ugrožena, upozoravaju stručnjaci.

Farmer je rekao da će se, ako se odustane od proučavanja novih tehnologija, dozvoliti da ta vrsta nestane.

Naučnik na Univerzitetu na Havajima Flojd Rid koji je radio na projektu modifikacije komarca Kuleks (Culex),
prenosnika ptičje malarije, smatra da genetski inženjering ima više strana.

Metode koje teoretski mogu da izmene DNK celokupne vrste moraju se uzeti u obzir sa velikom rezervom, rekao
je Rid.

"Postoje i druge vrste genetske modifikacije koje su bezbednije, geografski ograničene i mogu se poništiti",
dodao je on.

Članovi IUCN su se saglasili da ne treba podržavati ili podsticati naučna istraživanja, uključujući eksperimente u
prirode, u vezi sa "forsiranjem" gena u cilju očuvanja vrsta ili druge ciljeve dok do 2020. ne bude završena
evaluacija.

Ovaj stav međutim nije obavezujući.

Stručnjak za primate DŽej Gidal i više desetina aktivista za zaštitu životne sredine i naučnika potpisali su ove
nedelje otvoreno pismo u kome su izrazili zabrinutost zbog korišćenja tih metoda u oblasti bezbednosti,
poljoprivredi i očuvanju prirode.

U pismu se poziva da se obustave svi projekti u vezi s tim "s obzirom na očigledne opasnosti od puštanja
genocidnih gena u prirodu".
W e’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: The Geminids are the best meteor shower of
the year. This “king of meteor showers” produces up to 120 meteors of mostly white and
yellow color (though some are blue and red) per hour at its peak, known as the “zenithal
hourly rate.” Here’s why astronomers say the increasingly bright Geminids shower tonight
will be the best one yet.

How to See the 2018 Geminids Meteor

Shower
First, a little background: The shower occurs from December 7 to 17 each year as Earth
passes through a dusty trail of space debris broken off from a “weird” space object — more
on that below — and that debris disintegrates in the Earth’s atmosphere, becoming the
shower e see. In 2018, the shower peaks on the night of December 13, which is tonight,
Thursday, and into the wee hours of Friday morning, December 14. The meteors rain down a
little after 9 p.m. and hits its peak at 2 a.m.

The good news is that the first-quarter moon will have set by then, leaving the sky dark for
the shower. “Meteors will radiate from the constellation Gemini, but can appear anywhere in
the sky,” advises the sky guide SeaSky.org. Your best bet is to face south to spot the meteor
shower, though.

Because of tonight’s Geminids meteor shower peak, Google dedicated its Google Doodle to
the celestial event with a seven-panel illustration that shows the meteor shower’s path into
Earth’s atmosphere.

“With each passing year since the mid-1800s, the proliferation of yellowish streaks of light in
the night-time sky have grown more intense,” writes Google in its Doodle explanation that
accompanies the doodle which is showing up on Google homepages in more than 20
countries today.

In 2017, a “super moon” made seeing the shower difficult because it lit up the night sky,
which won’t be a factor this year. You won’t need binoculars or a telescope to see the
shower, either.

Will a Geminids Shower Meteor Hit Earth?

There’s very little chance of this happening because the meteors disintegrate more than 24
miles above Earth.
How to See the 2018 Geminids Meteor
Shower in a City
If you live in a city that has a lot of light pollution, head over to the website for Slooh — the
robotic telescope service — for a special Geminids webcast starting at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Original

Check Out This Adorable Thunderstorm That Forms Right On Your Desk

This panel from Thursday's Google Doodle shows the asteroid 3200 Phaethon as it passes the sun,
leaving meteors in its wake.
Asteroid 3200 Phaethon Will Be Visible this
Year
The asteroid 3200 Phaethon (named for the son of the Greek god Apollo) is the source of the
meteor shower — chunks of it break off as it passes by the sun and those meteors pass by
Earth — and will also be visible this year. The shower gets its name from the constellation
Gemini, from which it appears to radiate. The meteors themselves derive from old debris
from 3200 Phaethon, which is more of a “rock comet” instead of an asteroid. It’s lost most of
its ice because of the proximity of its path to the sun. The remnants of the ice create a trail of
debris that moves rather slowly and burns brightly as the Earth passes through each
December.

INVERSE LOOT DEALS

Jupiter+ Smart Mattress

$999.99
The Jupiter+ Smart Mattress is where exceptional comfort meets advanced technology. The only
sleep system in the world that leverages technology and personal biometrics to restore you to your
peak energy levels each morning.
Buy Now
You don’t have to find yourself looking in one particular direction, or use any telescopes or
fancy optical instruments. You just need to find a place relatively free of light pollution and
obstructing clouds, and lean back. Just remember to bundle up.

1:36 p.m. Eastern: This story has been updated with further details about the Geminids
meteor shower.

Photos via Google

What about GMOs in our homes?

4 October 2017

Adopting biobased materials in home building can slash construction

costs, but is Europe ready to put aside its fears about GM products?
One of the main contributors of CO2 emissions are the homes we live
in. In the EU, buildings are responsible for 36% of CO2emissions and
40% of energy consumption.
Researchers argue that, compared with using traditional mineral-based
materials in construction, “eco-friendly” durable composites can slash
by half the embodied energy and improve insulation by 20%. This
means better efficiency but also reduced building costs. The hitch, though,
is what biobased materials to use. And is it advisable to avoid GM
products?
GMOs, genetically modified organisms, are among one of the most
controversial topics in agriculture. Experts have divergent views. “The
current EU GM regulation is very much outdated and dysfunctional. Plant
science has in the last 15 years made enormous progress,” says Stefan
Jansson, professor in the Department of Plant Physiology at Umea
University, Sweden. “Gene transfer from GM crops to wild relatives is no
more or no less risky that gene transfer from all other (domesticated) crops
to wild relatives, which no-one ever cared about.”
It is important to ask why we are shying away from GMO products,
argues Jonathan Jones, a professor at The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK,
working on a project to test modified potatoes and their resistance
to blight. “The GM method is totally benign and totally safe and it enables
you to move genes that do different things from one plant to another,” he
says.
However, some groups pioneering the use of natural products in
construction have opted to avoid GM materials.
It is the case of the European project ISOBIO, which is developing
innovative solutions to boost the use of bio-based materials in
construction. They do not use agricultural waste from GMO plants.
Moreover, the companies that joined the consortium source local products,
which will be easier to recycle being part of their landscape. Manfred
Lemke, from Claytec, a Germany-based developer and producer of clay,
points out that they take their straw from the fields around the factory.
“Cavac, another partner in the project, sources hemp from local farmers
near its base France, rather than importing materials from overseas. ‘Think
global act local’ for supply chains, it avoids contamination and further
risks of anonymous, global supply chains,” he adds.
“Recycling agricultural waste sounds like a positive aim. If GM crops
were involved, then the potential harms would need to be thoroughly, and
independently, examined,” argues Liz O’Neill, director of campaign
group GM Freeze. “Even the tiniest change to the genome can have
unexpected impacts, both within the organism itself and in the ecosystem
into which it is introduced, ” she says. According to O’Neill, EU labelling
laws help consumers identify products with GM ingredients and avoid
them if they wish.
In this context, EU Ecolabel, a voluntary labelling scheme, certifies,
among other things that products do not originate from genetically
modified organisms.
However we approach the GM issue, looking forward to further research
on it, it is certainly important to brand any products containing GMOs to
allow consumers to make their own decision.
Nanobionic spinach plants can
detect explosives
After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-
nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert.Watch Video
Anne Trafton | MIT News Office
October 31, 2016
Press Inquiries
SHARE

COMMENT

Spinach is no longer just a superfood: By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes,

MIT engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect
explosives and wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a
smartphone.
This is one of the first demonstrations of engineering electronic systems into plants,
an approach that the researchers call “plant nanobionics.”
“The goal of plant nanobionics is to introduce nanoparticles into the plant to give it
non-native functions,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of
Chemical Engineering at MIT and the leader of the research team.

In this case, the plants were designed to detect chemical compounds known as
nitroaromatics, which are often used in landmines and other explosives. When one
of these chemicals is present in the groundwater sampled naturally by the plant,
carbon nanotubes embedded in the plant leaves emit a fluorescent signal that can
be read with an infrared camera. The camera can be attached to a small computer
similar to a smartphone, which then sends an email to the user.
“This is a novel demonstration of how we have overcome the plant/human
communication barrier,” says Strano, who believes plant power could also be
harnessed to warn of pollutants and environmental conditions such as drought.
Strano is the senior author of a paper describing the nanobionic plants in the Oct. 31
issue of Nature Materials. The paper’s lead authors are Min Hao Wong, an MIT
graduate student who has started a company called Plantea to further develop this
technology, and Juan Pablo Giraldo, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant
professor at the University of California at Riverside.
Environmental monitoring
Two years ago, in the first demonstration of plant nanobionics, Strano and Giraldo
used nanoparticles to enhance plants’ photosynthesis ability and to turn them into
sensors for nitric oxide, a pollutant produced by combustion.
Plants are ideally suited for monitoring the environment because they already take in
a lot of information from their surroundings, Strano says.
“Plants are very good analytical chemists,” he says. “They have an extensive root
network in the soil, are constantly sampling groundwater, and have a way to self-
power the transport of that water up into the leaves.”
Strano’s lab has previously developed carbon nanotubes that can be used as
sensors to detect a wide range of molecules, including hydrogen peroxide, the
explosive TNT, and the nerve gas sarin. When the target molecule binds to a
polymer wrapped around the nanotube, it alters the tube’s fluorescence.
In the new study, the researchers embedded sensors for nitroaromatic compounds
into the leaves of spinach plants. Using a technique called vascular infusion, which
involves applying a solution of nanoparticles to the underside of the leaf, they placed
the sensors into a leaf layer known as the mesophyll, which is where most
photosynthesis takes place.
They also embedded carbon nanotubes that emit a constant fluorescent signal that
serves as a reference. This allows the researchers to compare the two fluorescent
signals, making it easier to determine if the explosive sensor has detected anything.
If there are any explosive molecules in the groundwater, it takes about 10 minutes
for the plant to draw them up into the leaves, where they encounter the detector.
To read the signal, the researchers shine a laser onto the leaf, prompting the
nanotubes in the leaf to emit near-infrared fluorescent light. This can be detected
with a small infrared camera connected to a Raspberry Pi, a $35 credit-card-sized
computer similar to the computer inside a smartphone. The signal could also be
detected with a smartphone by removing the infrared filter that most camera phones
have, the researchers say.
“This setup could be replaced by a cell phone and the right kind of camera,” Strano
says. “It’s just the infrared filter that would stop you from using your cell phone.”
Using this setup, the researchers can pick up a signal from about 1 meter away from
the plant, and they are now working on increasing that distance.
Michael McAlpine, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the
University of Minnesota, says this approach holds great potential for engineering not
only sensors but many other kinds of bionic plants that might receive radio signals or
change color.
“When you have manmade materials infiltrated into a living organism, you can have
plants do things that plants don’t ordinarily do,” says McAlpine, who was not involved
in the research. “Once you start to think of living organisms like plants as
biomaterials that can be combined with electronic materials, this is all possible.”
“A wealth of information”
In the 2014 plant nanobionics study, Strano’s lab worked with a common laboratory
plant known as Arabidopsis thaliana. However, the researchers wanted to use
common spinach plants for the latest study, to demonstrate the versatility of this
technique. “You can apply these techniques with any living plant,” Strano says.
So far, the researchers have also engineered spinach plants that can detect
dopamine, which influences plant root growth, and they are now working on
additional sensors, including some that track the chemicals plants use to convey
information within their own tissues.
“Plants are very environmentally responsive,” Strano says. “They know that there is
going to be a drought long before we do. They can detect small changes in the
properties of soil and water potential. If we tap into those chemical signaling
pathways, there is a wealth of information to access.”
These sensors could also help botanists learn more about the inner workings of
plants, monitor plant health, and maximize the yield of rare compounds synthesized
by plants such as the Madagascar periwinkle, which produces drugs used to treat
cancer.
“These sensors give real-time information from the plant. It is almost like having the
plant talk to us about the environment they are in,” Wong says. “In the case of
precision agriculture, having such information can directly affect yield and margins.”