The gut microbiome is essential to maintain overall health and prevent disease, which can occur when these microbes are not in homeostasis. Microbial biotherapeutics are important to combat these issues, but they must be alive at the time of delivery for efficacy. Many potentially therapeutic species are anaerobes and thus are difficult to manufacture because of the limited efficacy of existing protective methods, making their production nearly impossible. We have developed a self-assembling cellular coating to improve the viability and stability of the next-generation biotherapeutic Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. We show protection from both harsh processing conditions and oxygen exposure, even in the absence of canonical cryoprotectants. This advance will increase the range of microbes that can be stably manufactured and facilitate the development of emerging strains of interest by ensuring their postproduction viability.

Polyphenols are naturally derived organic compounds that have long been used as food additives, antioxidants, and adhesives owing to their intrinsic physicochemical properties. Recently, there has been growing interest in the fabrication of coordination networks based on the self-assembly of polyphenols and metal ions, termed metal–phenolic networks (MPNs), for multiple biological applications including bioimaging, drug delivery, and cell encapsulation. The as-synthesized MPN complexes feature pH responsiveness, controllable size and rigidity, and tunable permeability based on the choice of polyphenol–metal ion pairs. The aim of this Review is to introduce the physicochemical properties of MPNs, highlight their recent biological applications in cancer theranostics and single-cell encapsulation, and discuss the future utility of MPNs for biomedical applications.

Bacillus subtilis are probiotic microbes that are difficult to formulate when they are not in their spore form. Using self-assembling coatings, these cells were successfully protected during the freeze-drying process.

Biomimetic catalysts, ranging from small-molecule metal complexes to supramolecular assembles, possess many exciting properties that could address salient challenges in industrialscale manufacturing. Inspired by natural enzymes, these biohybrid catalytic systems demonstrate superior characteristics, including high activity, enantioselectivity, and enhanced aqueous solubility, over their fully synthetic counterparts. However, instability and limitations in the prediction of structure-function relationships are major drawbacks that often prevent the application of biomimetic catalysts outside of the laboratory. Despite these obstacles, recent advances in synthetic enzyme models have improved our understanding of complicated biological enzymatic processes and enabled the production of catalysts with increased efficiency. This review outlines important developments and future prospects for the design and application of bioinspired and biohybrid systems at multiple length scales for important, biologically relevant, clean energy transformations.