After getting robust experimental evidence, ZJU-China focuses on the application of our new solution“Story Light” to promote the cultural relics restoration. We envision our project as a reliable solution for heritage restoration practitioners. In order to further improve our project, we have contacted both professors in the relative field and investigated the opinions of the masses in Human Practice. We believe that our project has the potential to be the first-line solution for cultural relics restoration in the future. Thus, we take it as our duty to propose real-world implementation and instruct others to use it.
In our project, we design three individual strains to produce carbonic anhydrase, ACCBP, and biological scaffolds. All the engineering strains contain our biosafety module and quorum sensing module.The three individual bacteria strains should be kept in 50% glycerol at -80oC freezer for long time storage or transportation.
Before use, the engineered strains need to be cultured in the liquid medium with 10% sucrose until the OD600 reaches 0.8-1.0. The bacteria liquid can be stored at 4oC for less than a week, as the vitality of strains may decrease under these conditions.
The thickening agent (mainly including starch) would be added to the mix before use. Altogether, we infuse it into a syringe and injected it into the target crack, referring to the size of the cracks. Then we will label a piece of wet dressing to keep it moist and block the outside dust and bacteria. Proliferating in the crack, the chassis will express the protein and produce CaCO3 when the population is large enough. Waiting for a few days, we would find the crack was filled with the newborn mineral.
1.“case by case” and customization. Our engineering strains can sense the space within tiny cracks through the quorum sensing module. With the population reaching the threshold, the substances they secrete will fill the space referring to the shapes of cracks.
2.Automation. The quorum sensing part can enable the bacteria to get to the depths of cracks, sense the surroundings and automatically secrete restorative substances automatically then.
3.High safety level. The chassis, Bacillus subtilis, is regarded as Risk Level 1 organism which means it has low risks affecting people’s health. Besides, we use the toxin-antitoxin system to ensure biosafety.
1.Uncontrollability of microorganisms. The first challenge we are confronted with is the uncontrollability of microorganisms, as our engineering strain may disturb the original biotic environment and produce undesirable metabolites, thus causing further damage to the cultural relics. Therefore, we are still trying our best to find out ways to resolve this problem.
2. Difficulties in colored heritage application. It is difficult to apply our solution to colored stone artifacts. Because our existing restoration materials are colorless and transparent, color aberration and other problems may occur when applied to colored cultural relics. In the future, we also consider adding dye modules for customization improvement.
3. High cost. At the beginning stage of this new technology, it’s difficult to reduce the cost, leading to less promotion and acceptance in the field. But we believe, with the promotion of the application and the maturity of the process, the cost will gradually decrease.
