Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam (BN) has received the ERC Starting Grant 2021, with her proposal entitled “Light-responsive microalgal living materials”. These fellowships are awarded to researchers with 2-7 years of experience since the completion of their PhD, a scientific track record of great promise and an outstanding research proposal.

Research aim
Nature fabricates materials which have the ability to grow, move and sense their environment. Such dynamic and interactive materials are in strong contrast with man-made synthetic materials. Recently scientists have become interested to incorporate living cells into materials to form living materials, using most often muscle cells or bacteria. While underexplored, microalgae-based living materials are highly promising due to the light-driven movement of microalgae. 

The aim of this ERC project is to develop the first microalgae-based photosynthetic living material with a dynamically light-controllable shape and with locally tuned (mechanical) properties. This project opens up possibilities for a new class of materials with life-like functionalities, such as shape change and light-sensing, which are likely to find wide applications, from soft robots to photosynthetic devices.