Above – Photograph of a floating mould containing a protocellular material in the shape of a triangle with 1.0 cm sides being lifted from a Petri dish. Credit: Dr Pierangelo Gobbo and Dr Agostino Galanti

They can produce centimetre-sized artificial tissues of any shape and with complex internal structures.

A team, led by Dr Pierangelo Gobbo from the university's School of Chemistry, developed the new technique and used it to assemble millions of sticky synthetic cells, called "protocells", into artificial tissues capable of communicating with each other as well as with their external environment. Previously protocells have been worked with individually, but the scientists found that when the cells were combined in a group to form protocellular materials they interacted together and showed advanced capabilities.