LEGO® bricks as building blocks for centimeter-scale biological environments

Lind, K., Sizmur, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9835-7195, Benomar, S., Miller, A. and Cademartiri, L. (2014) LEGO® bricks as building blocks for centimeter-scale biological environments. PLOS ONE, 9 (6). ISSN 1932-6203 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100867

Abstract/Summary

LEGO bricks are commercially available interlocking pieces of plastic that are conventionally used as toys. We describe their use to build engineered environments for cm-scale biological systems, in particular plant roots. Specifically, we take advantage of the unique modularity of these building blocks to create inexpensive, transparent, reconfigurable, and highly scalable environments for plant growth in which structural obstacles and chemical gradients can be precisely engineered to mimic soil.