(66b) Biohybrid Microswimmers with Biocompatible Polymetric Multilayers as Drug Delivery System

Biohybrid microsystems, which integrate living bacteria or cells with engineered functional materials, have been proposed for medicine, biomedical engineering, biosensors, and environmental applications.

In addition, responsiveness plays an important role in delivery applications, either for therapeutic loading or efficient drug release. We have developed bacteria-driven microswimmers with biocompatible polymeric construction and demonstrated their performance in a microfluidic device to develop a new type of biohybrid microsystem. The microswimmers are composed of single gram-negative bacterium attached to the outermost layer of drug-loaded biocompatible microparticles incorporated with layer-by-layer (LbL) polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) and Escherichia coli. The results show that these biocompatible microswimmers can move in various medium conditions and play the combined role of microsensor, microactuator, and therapeutic payload, indicating a great potential for targeted active drug delivery systems.