The next phase of structural color: engineering hyperuniformity in living microorganisms

The Department of the Army Materiel Command Research Development and Engineering Command awarded Yale University a $2.125 million cooperative agreement on September 26, 2025, to advance structural color engineering in living microorganisms through hyperuniformity mechanisms, supported under the Basic Scientific Research program (CFDA 12.431).

Yale's research team, led by Prof. Alison Sweeney, will engineer hyperuniform optical systems in bacteria and bacterial-synthetic material hybrids, translating naturally occurring structural color mechanisms into controllable optical properties. Work includes fabricating cell-free optical materials from soft optically resonant extracellular substances using micro- and nanofabrication techniques; manipulating bacterial cellular order along the optical axis through patterned and elastomeric substrates and microfluidic channels; engineering bacterial droplets to control inner and external orientational structure and order parameters; and delivering regular reports to the Army Research Office. The five-year cooperative agreement runs through September 25, 2030, with place of performance in New Haven, Connecticut.

Three sub-recipients deliver complementary research capabilities. Kent State University's Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, led by Oleg Lavrentovich, characterizes optical properties of structurally colored materials through polarizing optical microscopy, fluorescence confocal microscopy, and PolScope imaging; prepares photopatterned liquid crystal elastomer substrates and lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal cells to align ordered bacterial colonies; and explores selective light reflection in composites with oblique helicoidal cholesteric liquid crystals and colloidal particles. University of Pennsylvania, under PI Yang, fabricates cell-free optical materials, manipulates bacterial order using patterned substrates and microfluidic systems, and engineers bacterial droplets with controlled orientational structure. University of Illinois contributes fundamental research advancing self-assembly understanding in block copolymer-phospholipid hybrid membranes and corresponding ion transport mechanisms. Sub-awards to University of Pennsylvania were dated December 5, 2025, and January 6, 2026; Kent State University received its sub-award on March 4, 2026; and University of Illinois on November 14, 2025.