Biocamera uses bacteria as film

Filed in archive Materials on December 12, 2005

A photographic film made up of living bacteria has been created by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco. The researchers created the 100 megapixel resolution print at left by first genetically modifying certain E. Coli bacteria and drawing' with them on a bed of unmodified E. Coli. When the bacterial bed was bathed in red light, the modified bacteria reacted differently than the unmodified ones and turned an accompanying photographic solution black.

And while you won' t find bacteria-based film at your local camera shop anytime soon, it does have important implications for nanomanufacturing. Principal investigator Chris Voigt says that the same precisely directed light that created the image at left (courtesy Chris Voigt) could also be used to guide the manufacture of nanomaterials in a nano-factory, where, as he says, " the bacteria could weave a complex material. " Harry Kroto, the Nobel prize-winning discoverer of buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs, concurs, calling Voigt' s biocamera an " extremely exciting advance. "

"I have always thought, " says Kroto, " that the first major nanotechnology advances would involve some sort of chemical modification of biology." more @ newscientist.com