The Nachwuchsakademie "Engineered Living Materials" is a DFG workshop for early career investigators in Engineered Living Materials funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). Early career scientists interested in this emerging and rapidly growing field will be interdisciplinary trained and prepared for the submission of their own project proposal at the DFG. The participants will have the opportunity to further develop their own innovative ideas and apply for the one-year funding to kick off their career in ELM. This workshop for early career scientists aims at initiating an ELM community in Germany, by accelerating interdisciplinary training and exchange among doctoral researchers and early postdocs in materials and life sciences, and by supporting direct implementation of innovative projects in the field.

The Third International Conference on Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) will gather the communities of material scientists, synthetic biologists, biotechnologies, and biophysicists interested in programming and creating biohybrid materials with life-like capabilities. Engineered Living Materials open new avenues for resource-efficient fabrication of high-performance materials, and envision materials with unprecedented property combinations like integrated multifunctionality, adaptability, resilience, or evolvability. The recent developments and future of this rapidly growing field will be presented and discussed at the conference. The program will contain representatives from the academia, industry, regulatory agencies, and funding bodies to discuss the technical and environmental benefits and expected challenges of a functional marriage of non-living matter and living organisms. In parallel to the scientific presentations, dedicated discussion rounds on technology transfer aspects of ELMs will be organized. Attendees are expected to join the conference in person. However, the meeting will turn into a hybrid event if the pandemic situation still imposes travelling restrictions. Please find the conference webpage here: About - Living Materials 2022