#hydrogel

Scientists create living building material that captures CO₂ from the air

The idea seems futuristic: At ETH Zurich, various disciplines are working together to combine conventional materials with bacteria, algae and fungi. The common goal: to create living materials that acquire useful properties thanks to the metabolism of microorganisms -- "such as the ability to bind CO2 from the air by means of photosynthesis," says Mark Tibbitt, Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich. An interdisciplinary research team led by Tibbitt has now turned this vision into reality: it has stably incorporated photosynthetic bacteria -- known as cyanobacteria -- into a printable gel and developed a material that is alive, grows and actively removes carbon from the air. The researchers recently presented their "photosynthetic living material" in a study in the journal Nature Communications.

Flash and Bone

Flexible, sticky and adaptable, cells are the ultimate building blocks – forming lifelong structures during development, or moulding into shape inside wounds. Helping this process along, bioengineers make tiny scaffolds to guide cells while they knit together. But making their structures biocompatible – welcoming to cells and tissues – is a challenge. Here researchers use a technique called two-photon polymerisation, aiming precise laser blasts inside a wobbly hydrogel. Chemicals inside react to each flash of light and harden into patterns, allowing the team to create structures like this model femur (grey). They find a balance between biocompatibility, so the structures attract living cells, and photo reactivity, allowing precise design. The sight of human cells (highlighted in turquoise with nuclei in purple) swarming over the femur, raises hopes for similar tiny structures helping with injuries in the future.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Wanwan Qiu and colleagues

Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Advanced Materials, January 2026

by Corey Zheng, PhD Student in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Shu Jia, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Inspired by the human eye, our biomedical engineering lab at Georgia Tech has designed an adaptive lens made of soft, light-responsive, tissuelike materials.

Adjustable camera systems usually require a set of bulky, moving, solid lenses and a pupil in front of a camera chip to adjust focus and intensity. In contrast, human eyes perform these same functions using soft, flexible tissues in a highly compact form.

Acting as the main interface between the internal and the external world, the skin is the largest and most important organ of the human body. It is frequently exposed to many types of physical injuries or wounds, including cuts, scrapes, scratches, infections, and ulcers. Unfortunately, as one ages, the skin becomes more frail and less capable of healing itself without help. With many countries experiencing a rapid rise in the aging population, the demand for treating such skin wounds has created a greater need for accessible and effective wound care products.

Celebrate the small wins.