Cascades in Compartments: En Route to Machine-Assisted Biotechnology

Biological compartmentalization is a fundamental principle of life that allows cells to metabolize, propagate, or communicate with their environment. Much research is devoted to understanding this basic principle and to harness biomimetic compartments and catalytic cascades as tools for technological processes. This Review summarizes the current state-of-the-art of these developments, with a special emphasis on length scales, mass transport phenomena, and molecular scaffolding approaches, ranging from small cross-linkers over proteins and nucleic acids to colloids and patterned surfaces. We conclude that the future exploration and exploitation of these complex systems will largely benefit from technical solutions for the integrated, machine-assisted development and maintenance of a next generation of biotechnological processes. These goals should be achievable by implementing microfluidics, robotics, and added manufacturing techniques supplemented by theoretical simulations as well as computer-aided process modeling based on big data obtained from multiscale experimental analyses.