MRS Communications (2019), 9, 486–504 © Materials Research Society, 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1557/mrc.2019.35 Synthetic Biology Prospective Synthetic biology for fibers, adhesives, and active camouflage materials in protection and aerospace Aled D. Roberts *, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre SYBIOCHEM, School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M1 7DN, UK; Bio-Active Materials Group, School of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK William Finnigan*, Emmanuel Wolde-Michael, and Paul Kelly, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre SYBIOCHEM, School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M1 7DN, UK Jonny J. Blaker, Bio-Active Materials Group, School of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK Sam Hay, Rainer Breitling, Eriko Takano, and Nigel S. Scrutton, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre SYBIOCHEM, School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M1 7DN, UK Address all correspondence to Nigel Scrutton at
[email protected] (Received 30 November 2018; accepted 12 March 2019) Abstract Synthetic biology has a huge potential to produce the next generation of advanced materials by accessing previously unreachable (bio)chem- ical space. In this prospective review, we take a snapshot of current activity in this rapidly developing area, focusing on prominent examples for high-performance applications such as those required for protective materials and the aerospace sector.