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Journal articleJiang Q, Normand C, Beauchamp F, et al., 2026,
Structural composite battery: Reinforced carbon fibre electrodes within a porous polyethersulfone matrix
, Composites Science and Technology, Vol: 278, ISSN: 0266-3538A method to produce multifunctional structural battery composites comprising carbon fibre reinforced anodes and cathodes, and electrolyte filled bicontinuous polymer matrix is disclosed. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and lithium titanate (LTO) were deposited onto carbon fibres by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) to produce multifunctional cathodes and anodes, respectively. EPD allowed for an even coating of individual carbon fibres depositing 30 wt% of active materials with respect to carbon fibre current collectors. Carbon fibre reinforced cathode (LFP@CF), separator and anode (LTO@CF) were stacked and impregnated using polyethersulfone (PES) in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solution; the PES was subsequently precipitated by non-solvent induced phase separation forming a porous high-performance polymer matrix within the stack. The porous matrix binds the carbon fibres and separator while providing sufficient openness for the electrochemical interface. The LFP@CF | separator | LTO@CF/PES assembly had an average Young's modulus of 27 ± 10 GPa and tensile strength of 282 ± 65 MPa. Structural battery composites possessed an energy density of 63 Wh/kg<inf>LFP</inf> or 2 Wh/kg<inf>battery</inf> at charge rate of 0.1C and were able to be cyclically dis/charged for more than 400 h.
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Journal articleYousefi N, Tao H, Anthony DB, et al., 2026,
Scale matters: a perspective on structural hierarchical carbon fibre composites incorporating carbon nanotubes
, Composites Science and Technology, Vol: 277, ISSN: 0266-3538Composites have long played a vital role in material science due to their lightweight, stiff, strong, and durable construction. Composites consist of at least two complementary materials, typically comprising reinforcing elements, prominently carbon or glass fibres, held in place by a surrounding polymer matrix. Conventional fibre composites already display a structural hierarchy from fibres within tows, to plies, to laminates forming large-scale structures. The term “hierarchical composites” specifically refers to materials that integrate reinforcements spanning additional length scales, down to the molecular range, most notably nanoscale reinforcements that complement microscale fibres. Natural structural materials rely extensively on hierarchical motifs to maximise performance, though using constituents limited by abundance and ambient aqueous processing. Technical hierarchical composites are broadly inspired by natural multiscale systems, sometimes implementing specific mechanisms from nature in new material classes. In hierarchical composites, the largest reinforcement, fibres, dominate in-plane mechanical properties. In contrast, nanoscale reinforcements may address matrix-dominated responses by, for example, improving shear properties that control stress transfer and kink band initiation, introducing additional toughening mechanisms to limit debonding or delamination, and providing direct reinforcement, particularly through-thickness. Nanomaterials can provide other benefits, such as improved fatigue life, acoustic damping, and solvent/fire resistance. The addition of nanomaterials may also imbue composites with multifunctionality, obviating other constituents or components and reducing system weight. We critically discuss the progress in developing hierarchical fibre reinforced carbon nanotube composites over the past decade and provide insight into manufacturing and their structural and functional performance.
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Journal articleSilm M, Jiang Q, Kisand A, et al., 2026,
Transforming textile waste into materials using fungi
, Resources Conservation and Recycling, Vol: 228, ISSN: 0921-3449Textile waste from ‘fast fashion’ has considerable environmental impact and is an EU priority area. Colonising textiles with fungi provides a unique solution, with options to bond them together to create composite materials, fruit them to provide mushrooms (source of chitin-glucan complex), or both. We produced mycelium-textile composites in analogy to traditional prepreg-based composite manufacturing, consolidating multiple textile stacks colonised with Ganoderma lucidum into a single material of customisable thickness and free-form geometry. An oxygen gradient existed through the cross-section of textile stacks, resulting in more growth on surface than core plies. Consolidated composites comprising only surface layers achieved tensile strengths up to ∼14 MPa. Their flexural and shear strengths (7 MPa and 0.5 MPa, respectively) indicated suitability for semi-structural construction applications. Waste textile substrate could also be fruited (5.7% w/w yield). These advances expand the stalled application of mycelium composites and provide a nature-based solution to textile upcycling.
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Journal articleRafieenia R, Fu J, Hapeta P, et al., 2026,
Advancing arabinose-based bioproduction in Yarrowia lipolytica by integrating metabolic engineering and adaptive laboratory evolution
, Metabolic Engineering, Vol: 94, Pages: 15-23, ISSN: 1096-7176The oleaginous yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica has gained interest as a biotechnological chassis to produce foods, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels. To reduce production costs and sustainability, inexpensive and abundant feedstocks such as lignocellulose must be used for bioproduction. Since lignocellulosic biomass contains components that cannot be utilised by Y. lipolytica, it is important to use engineering biology to enable their utilisation. L-arabinose is the second most abundant pentose in lignocellulose after xylose. However, it has received much less attention than xylose as a bioresource. In the present study, we first engineered Y. lipolytica to grow on L-arabinose as the sole carbon source. We used several wild-type and engineered strains to express the multigene arabinose cassette. Second, we used adaptive laboratory evolution to improve the utilisation of arabinose by the engineered strains. Third, we enabled the production of β-carotene from arabinose by expressing a β-carotene cassette in the evolved strain. Using minimal YNB medium supplemented with 20 g/l of arabinose as the sole carbon source resulted in the complete utilisation of L-arabinose within 120 h. In bioreactors, a β-carotene production of 418.89 mg/l was achieved with the complete utilisation of 60 g/l of L-arabinose. This study is the first to engineer L-arabinose utilisation in Y. lipolytica, opening new avenues for biomanufacturing using alternative carbon sources.
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Journal articleSun T, Sun M-L, Lin L, et al., 2026,
Combining multiplex metabolic engineering with adaptive evolution strategies for high-level succinic acid production in Yarrowia lipolytica
, Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, Vol: 11, Pages: 48-58, ISSN: 2405-805XSuccinic acid, an essential platform chemical with extensive utility in biodegradable materials, pharmaceuticals, and the food industry, faces challenges of high energy consumption and environmental pollution in traditional chemical synthesis. Here, we employed multiplex metabolic engineering and adaptive laboratory evolution to enhance succinic acid biosynthesis in Yarrowia lipolytica. By attenuating succinate dehydrogenase (Sdh) activity, mitigating by-product accumulation, and enhancing the succinate synthesis pathway, engineered strains showed efficient succinic acid production from glycerol. The titer reached 130.99 g/L under unregulated pH conditions, translating to a yield of 0.35 g/g and a productivity of 0.70 g/(L·h). Subsequently, transporter engineering and adaptive evolution strategies were applied to enhance glucose utilization for succinic acid synthesis, yielding an evolved strain that eliminated the growth lag phase and produced 106.68 g/L succinic acid from glucose, which translated to a yield of 0.32 g/g and a productivity of 0.64 g/(L·h). Additionally, transcriptomic analysis and inverse metabolic engineering revealed that 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (4-Hppd) in the tyrosine degradation pathway partially restored the growth of Sdh-deficient strains on glucose, offering new insights for subsequent succinic acid biomanufacturing using Y. lipolytica.
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Journal articleWang Y, Jiang Q, Vorlaufer D, et al., 2026,
Application of vitrimer-based sizing agent onto carbon fibres through thiol-ene photo-polymerisation
, COMPOSITES PART A-APPLIED SCIENCE AND MANUFACTURING, Vol: 202, ISSN: 1359-835X -
Journal articleMalcı K, Meng F, Galez H, et al., 2026,
Slowpoke: An Automated Golden Gate Cloning Workflow for Opentrons OT-2 and Flex.
, ACS Synth Biol, Vol: 15, Pages: 511-521In synthetic biology, DNA assembly is a routine process where increasing demands for standardization, high-throughput capacity, and error-free execution are driving the development of accessible, automated solutions. Here, we present Slowpoke, a user-friendly and flexible workflow for Golden Gate-based cloning designed for the popular entry-cost, open-source liquid-handling platforms Opentrons OT-2 and Flex. Slowpoke automates the key steps of the DNA assembly process, including cloning, Escherichia coli transformation, plating, and colony PCR, requiring user intervention primarily for colony picking and plate transfers. To further simplify the usage, we developed a free graphical user interface (GUI), available at https://slowpoke.streamlit.app/, which enables rapid protocol generation through simple file uploads. We validated the workflow using two Golden Gate-based toolkits, the MoClo Yeast Toolkit (YTK), and SubtiToolKit (STK). High assembly efficiencies were achieved across platforms for basic transcript unit constructions: 17/17 positive colonies with YTK on OT-2, 11/12 on Flex, and 8/13 with STK on OT-2. High-throughput assemblies were also performed with six parts in Flex using YTK-compatible parts, and 55 out of 57 combinations resulted in correct constructs. These results confirm the robustness and adaptability of the workflow across toolkit complexity and automation platforms. The Slowpoke suite, including code scripts and templates, is freely available at https://github.com/Tom-Ellis-Lab/Slowpoke, offering an accessible and modular solution for automating Golden Gate cloning in synthetic biology laboratories.
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Journal articleCohen LD, Moratto E, Stanley CE, 2026,
20 years of microfluidic technology for advancing plant sciences.
, Lab ChipUnderstanding how plants respond to dynamic and spatially variable stimuli is a key goal in plant sciences. Traditional imaging methods often involve a trade-off between environmental control and spatial resolution, limiting their ability to capture real-time responses in high resolution. Microfluidic technology overcomes these limitations by facilitating precise control of environmental conditions and high-resolution live imaging. In the past two decades, microfluidic technology has increasingly been applied in plant sciences research. This review summarises current applications of microfluidic technology in plant sciences, including studies of root-rhizosphere interactions, tip-growing plant cells, plant protoplasts, and plant phenotyping. Emerging trends are explored, and key research gaps are highlighted.
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Journal articlePollock J, Huang JTJ, Shuttleworth M, et al., 2026,
Clinical, molecular and microbial characterisation of the eosinophilic endotype of bronchiectasis: data from the EMBARC-BRIDGE study.
, ThoraxOBJECTIVES: Eosinophilic bronchiectasis is defined by a blood eosinophil count (BEC) ≥300 cells/µL, but blood eosinophils imperfectly reflect airway eosinophilic inflammation. Here, we investigated the relationship between eosinophilic airway inflammation, blood eosinophils and clinical severity in bronchiectasis and explored the phenotype associated with eosinophilic bronchiectasis. METHODS: Sputum from 180 patients with stable CT-confirmed bronchiectasis was utilised to investigate airway levels of eosinophil proteins (eosinophil peroxidase (EPX), eosinophil derived-neurotoxin (EDN), eosinophil cationic protein (ECP), major basic protein (MBP) and Galectin-10 (Gal-10)) using a novel stable isotope dilution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay. To profile eosinophilic bronchiectasis, a nested analysis of patients with BEC <150 cells/µL (n=52) and ≥300 cells/µL (n=49) was conducted. RESULTS: Sputum concentrations of Gal-10, ECP and EDN were weakly but significantly associated with radiological severity, FEV1 and sputum culture positivity for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Airway eosinophil protein concentrations did not associate with exacerbation frequency. Total eosinophil protein concentration moderately correlated with BECs (r=0.33 95% CI 0.14 to 0.49, p=0.0007). Nested analysis revealed increased sputum PCR-positivity for P. aeruginosa (26.7% vs 7.7%, p=0.033) and an increased frequency of patients showing signs of Aspergillus sensitisation (defined as Aspergillus-specific IgE titres >0.35 kUA/L, 24.5% vs 3.8%) in eosinophilic bronchiectasis. Sputum inflammatory biomarkers and clinical parameters did not differ between groups. CONCLUSIONS: LC-MS/MS can detect eosinophilic inflammation within bronchiectasis sputum. Weak associations between elevated airway eosinophil proteins, bronchiectasis severity and P. aeruginosa infection were observed. Direct measurement of eosinophilic airway i
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Journal articleWilliams TJ, Kermani NZ, Gonzales-Huerta LE, et al., 2026,
A Role for Non-Canonical Caspases in Fungal Allergic Airway Disease.
, Clin Exp Allergy
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