Doctoral defence: Hans Priks "Life within 3D-printed engineered living materials based on micellar hydrogels"

On 29 January at 14:15, Hans Priks will defend his doctoral thesis "Life within 3D-printed engineered living materials based on micellar hydrogels" for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Environmental Engineering)

Supervisior:
Professor Tarmo Tamm, University of Tartu

Opponent:
Associate Professor Johan Ulrik Lind, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Summary: For decades, our global economy has followed a linear economy model — “take-make-waste”. This approach has been highly efficient in the short term but has had devastating effects on the environment in the long run. Fossil fuels have powered our industries, plastics have shaped our world, and the culture of consumption has led to mountains of waste. However, this progress has come at a cost: rising temperatures, erratic weather patterns, and degraded ecosystems that sustain life. For many, the answer lies in the concept of a circular bioeconomy, where biological resources replace fossil fuels as the backbone of industry and resources are kept in circulation as long as possible.
At the heart of this transition lies biotechnology. Living cells, such as bacteria, yeast, algae, and mammalian cells, can act as miniature factories that convert renewable feedstocks into valuable products. Advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology have enabled these systems to be programmed with increasing precision for industrial and environmental purposes, broadening the range of products and functions achievable through biological means. However, these cells also have limitations. They typically require carefully controlled and sterile environments to maintain productivity. Over time, especially in complex or changing environments, their performance can deteriorate due to genetic instability and the accumulation of mutations, leading to the loss of function or uncontrolled proliferation. Furthermore, ensuring biocontainment and preventing genetic leakage into natural ecosystems remain persistent challenges. These limitations underscore the need for material-based strategies — such as encapsulating cells to create engineered living materials (ELMs) — that provide physical control, environmental buffering, and stable microenvironments to enhance the robustness of these synthetic biological systems. In this field, many bio-based and biopolymer materials have been explored. However, most of these are not biologically inert and can therefore be susceptible to microbial degradation or enzymatic breakdown by the very organisms they are intended to host, limiting their use in longer-term biomanufacturing scenarios.
This thesis investigates UV-crosslinkable micellar hydrogels as structural platforms for 3D printing of ELMs. The work focuses on how micellar hydrogels govern spatial organisation, cell proliferation, phenotype and metabolism, with the broader aim of identifying design rules for scalable, spatially organised and metabolically programmable living systems.

Defence can be followed in Zoom: Doctoral Defence (meeting ID: 953 058 8152, passcode: kaitsmine).