What is biological fabrication? It is combining the ability of designing bioinspired molecules (chemistry) with nature's complexity and ingenious paths (biology) in order to produce new composite materials with emergent properties while being able to tailor the said materials' end‐functionality or functionalities. And what is material farming? It is the possibility to implement alternative and sustainable methodologies of biological fabrication toward larger scales, real‐life applications, and marketable products. The proof‐of‐principle is recently demonstrated for biological fabrication of fibers with tailored properties using an in vitro cotton culture and designed glucose derivatives yielding fluorescent and supermagnetic cotton fibers. This new “fabrication approach” will allow, in the future, to sustainably transform abundant raw materials into an innovative new class of composite functional materials, such as a new generation of smart textiles in the above case of cotton. This essay provides a very brief overview of the research done in cotton, the methodology used for the biological fabrication of cotton fibers with tailored properties and, finally, showcases perspectives on the future of this new and exciting research field that challenges the present fabrication methodologies that heavily rely on an old mindset toward bio‐based fabrication strategies.

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生物制造和材料农业的未来展望

什么是生物制造？它将设计具有生物启发性的分子（化学）的能力与自然界的复杂性和巧妙的途径（生物学）相结合，以生产具有出众特性的新型复合材料，同时能够定制所述材料的最终功能或功能。什么是物质农业？有可能针对更大规模，现实应用和可销售产品实施替代性和可持续性的生物制造方法。最近，使用体外棉花培养和设计的葡萄糖衍生物产生荧光和超磁性棉纤维，对具有定制特性的纤维进行生物制造的原理证明得到了证明。这种新的“制造方法”将在未来允许 可持续地将丰富的原材料转变为创新的新型复合功能材料类别，例如在上述情况下的新一代智能纺织品。本文对棉花方面的研究进行了非常简短的概述，介绍了用于生物加工具有定制特性的棉纤维的方法，最后展示了对这一新的令人振奋的研究领域的未来的看法，这些领域对目前的制造方法提出了挑战，很大程度上依赖于基于生物制造策略的旧思维。