The Project

CYA-TECH is a project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (2024-2026) and is hosted by the University of Milan in the Laboratory of Biotechnology for Cultural Heritage.

CYA-TECH, aims to develop a CYAnobacteria-based consolidation TECHnology for the conservation of stone heritage through bioprotection strategies:

• Promoting mineral precipitation and deposition on the stone via natural processes performed by microorganisms, such as cyanobacteria.
• Optimizing interdisciplinary methodologies to unveil how cyanobacteria interact with stone surfaces, shaping water dynamics and mechanical behavior, and revealing their potential as Nature-based Solutions for stone conservation.

The strength of CYA-TECH relies on two ground-breaking ideas:

1. Exploiting for the first time the photosynthetic metabolism and the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) of cyanobacteria to precipitate calcium carbonate. Cyanobacterial activity has not only impacted the global cycle of carbon on the Earth for billions of years and induced the oxygenation of the atmosphere but also, leads to the formation of carbonate sedimentary deposits in the environment, such as stromatolites. Remarkably, cyanobacteria have a thick layer of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) intimately associated with the cell surface that serve as calcite nucleation sites. The cyano-EPS that incorporates the carbonate crystals increases the hardness of the bioprecipitate, improving its mechanical properties.
2. Taking advantage of the cyanobacteria responses to different artificial light (physical switches) to modulate the calcite precipitation. The control over microbial metabolism through environmental switches would enable on-demand and precision bioconsolidation.