The Plant as Teacher - Insights from Botany for Growing Devices in Functional Shape

Abstract

Currently, there is a huge difference between growth in organisms and the production of technical devices, buildings, textiles and further human produce. Growing things we need in functional shape, with locally available materials and using water-based chemistry at ambient conditions, that serve as food or fertilizer at the end of their lifetime, is still a dream. Plants, animals and microorganisms, on the other hand, excel in this realm. Multiple organisms have developed ways to manipulate the growth of plants to their advantage. Gall wasps for example chemically and locally reprogram plant cells that then grow into functional structures serving as breeding chamber for the galls offspring. Learning from gall wasps shall pave our way to plant-aided growth of things we need, already in functional shape - without the need for further processing. The invited lecture gives an overview of the biological control of growth in plants by visiting organisms and introduces plant growth simulation algorithms as well as computer-based approaches to direct the growth of leaves into the development of gall-like structures.