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April 12, 2020 by Steve Hanley
Most of us have heard that coral reefs worldwide are dying, largely due to warmer ocean temperatures and increased acidity of seawater, but few people realize why that is. important to humans. Who really cares if the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is almost lifeless? So a few rich divers will not be able to see it. Boo-hoo It’s actually a little bit more complicated than that.
Image credit: NOAA
Let’s start by explaining what coral is. Is it a plant? It’s an animal? Actually, it’s a bit of both. The coral on the outside provides a framework for the algae that live on the inside. The algae actually converts sunlight through photosynthesis to produce food for them and the coral. Live coral, in turn, provides a habitat for hundreds of species of marine life, species that form a vital link in the food chain on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their daily sustenance. Those little algae may seem insignificant, but without them many people would die of malnutrition.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and UC San Diego say they have found a way to 3D print a bionic coral that supports the photosynthetic capabilities of the algae. “Corals are highly efficient at collecting and using light,” said first author Daniel Wangpraseurt, a Cambridge professor of chemistry. “In our laboratory, we are looking for methods to copy and mimic these strategies of nature for commercial applications.”
That’s critical for replicating structures with living cells, says UC San Diego co-author Shaochen Chen. “Most of these cells would die if we had to use traditional extrusion or inkjet based processes because these methods take hours. It would be like keeping a fish out of water. The cells we work with will not survive if they are kept out of their culture media too long. Our process is high performance and offers really fast print speeds making it compatible with human cells, animal cells and even algae cells in this case. “
The researchers tested various types of microalgae and found that the growth rates of some were 100 times higher than in standard liquid growth media. They used a rapid 3D bioprinting technique capable of reproducing detailed structures that mimic complex designs and functions of living tissues. The technique uses an optical ultrasound analog called optical coherence tomography to scan live corals and use the models for their 3D printed designs.
Image credit: Cambridge University.
The custom-made 3D bioprinter uses light to print coral microscale structures in seconds. The printed coral copies natural coral structures and light-gathering properties, creating a host artificial microenvironment for living microalgae with micron-scale resolution in just minutes. Coral-inspired structures are highly efficient at redistributing light, as are natural corals.
“We developed an artificial coral skeleton and tissue with a combination of polymer gels and hydrogels doped with cellulose nanomaterials to mimic the optical properties of living corals,” says co-author Silvia Vignolini, also from the Cambridge Department of Chemistry. “Cellulose is an abundant biopolymer. It is excellent for scattering light and we use it to optimize the light supply to photosynthetic algae. ”
Wangpraseurt adds: “By copying the host’s micro habitat, we can also use our 3D bioprinted corals as a model system for coral algae symbiosis, which is urgently needed to understand the collapse of symbiosis during declining coral reefs. coral. There are many different applications for our new technology.
“We recently created a company called Mantaz that uses coral-inspired light harvesting approaches to grow algae for bioproducts in developing countries. We hope that our technique is scalable so that it can have a real impact on the algae bio-sector and ultimately reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for the death of coral reefs. “
According to TechCrunch, research is not seen as a way to restore dying coral reefs, but rather as a way to create reef-like structures that can be studied in the laboratory. That could lead to a better understanding of the ecosystem in which the coral-algae association thrives and how it can be cultivated. The acquired knowledge, in turn, could help rescue coral reefs around the world from further damage and deterioration.
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About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else Singularity can take him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platform run by evil lords like Facebook.
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