Abstract
When Light Awakens Life
iRIS is a living ode to Van Gogh's Irises—where synthetic biology becomes a brushstroke, and engineered Escherichia coli(E. coli) bloom in chromatic light. Guided by refined RGB-sensing circuits, these microscopic artists synthesize indigo, 6,6'-dibromoindigo and 4,4'-dinitroindigo under precise red/green/blue illumination, painting not merely pigments, but a symphony of co-creation with life. Beyond its aesthetic beauty, iRIS bridges synthetic biology and aesthetic education, transforming laboratories into studios where genes and colors compose together. By lowering the threshold of art-making through living systems, we seek to reimagine bio-art as a democratic form of creativity, accessible to diverse communities. Our project thus highlights both the technical feasibility of programmable pigments and the cultural value of engaging the public in a dialogue between life sciences and the arts.
Inspiration
Problem Related
At its heart, aesthetic education is not a luxury but a pursuit of human wholeness—a way for individuals to experience life as meaningful, emotional, and deeply humane. Yet today, the pendulum of education often swings toward material achievement while neglecting the nourishment of spirit. [1]
For today's youth, the terrain of aesthetics is reshaped by the algorithmic gaze of digital culture. Viral beauty standards, sensational videos, and even the grotesque spectacles of the internet infiltrate their daily lives, quietly steering taste away from depth and toward distraction. What is lost is not only refinement, but the very capacity to find resonance, empathy, and wonder through beauty. [2]
Based on our interviews and questionnaires, art and music classes are too often replaced by “core” subjects in most areas of China. In small towns, art rooms remain locked, silent witnesses to an education system that forgets them. Families in cities may still afford private art lessons, but for many rural households constrained by resources and awareness, such opportunities never arrive. A utilitarian mindset reduces art to “secondary,” expendable once exams loom. Even when courses exist, the scarcity of trained art teachers leaves many students with makeshift lessons taught across disciplines. Over time, literature, painting, and music risk becoming symbols hung too high—icons admired but seldom lived. [3], [4]
And yet, in an era where holistic development—intellectual, moral, physical, aesthetic, and practical—has become a national ideal, the role of aesthetic education must be reclaimed. Aesthetic cultivation is not ornament; it is nourishment for character, creativity, and the inner life. [5] Here, synthetic biology enters as an unexpected ally. By lowering the thresholds of artistic creation—turning gene-edited patterns into living motifs, or bio-materials into tactile installations—it opens a window where art once seemed out of reach.
This dialogue across boundaries reminds us: art is not the preserve of elites, but the inheritance of all. In merging science with aesthetics, synthetic biology does not replace traditional art; rather, it expands its canvas, awakening the imagination of a broader public. In doing so, it also advances bio-art as a new medium—one that invites society to rethink how life sciences and art, once distant disciplines, can co-create a future where beauty and knowledge belong to everyone. [6]
Why Irises? Why Now?
“Van Gogh painted irises thrice: in bloom, in wilt, in rebirth.iRIS paints them a fourth way: in becoming.”
Here, microbes teach us profound truths:
Imperfection as Beauty:Van Gogh's irises were never flawless; their asymmetry and fragility carried the mark of life itself. So too with microbial pigments—never uniform, never predictable, yet luminous in their irregularity.
Light as Resonance: Irises bend toward the sun, their colors shifting with light. In our project, light is not only illumination but language— a spectrum through which microbes translate photons into indigo hues, echoing nature's hidden symphony.
Time as Co-Creator: Flowers bloom and fade. Cultures grow, transform, and perish. iRIS embraces time not as an enemy but as a partner, where waiting becomes part of the artwork, and each moment of growth a brushstroke.
We invite you to witness not just a scientific feat, but a manifesto for humanistic innovation where genes, light, and human yearning converge to honor life's most vulnerable yet vibrant hues.
Synthetic Biology reminds us a way...
a way to converse with life, not just to command it.
For decades, biology has been approached as a code to be cracked or a machine to be engineered. While this paradigm has yielded incredible breakthroughs, Synthetic Biology offers a more profound possibility: to engage in a dialogue with the living world. Our project, centered on designing light-controlled microbial dyes for art, is built upon this ethos of conversation. It is not about forcing bacteria to produce colors under our strict command; it is about creating a language—using light as our words and genetic circuits as our grammar, to invite them to collaborate in creating beauty.
This shift from a monologue to a dialogue is made possible by the foundational work of pioneers who saw biology as a programmable medium, thus our project can be built on artistic visions. Our project echoes Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's questions in E.chromi about whether engineered life can produce meaningful expressions.Simultaneously, it answers the call of contemporary artists like Cai Xiao, whose work demonstrates how senses of beauty can be illustrated by microbes. We also learned from the microbial artistry of 2021 NWU-CHINA-A, which used E. coli for the production of 6,6'-dibromoindigo and intriguingly integrated the dye with national intangible cultural heritage, demonstrating that cells can be collaborators in creation. Furthermore, we are inspired by the narrative depth of 2018 UCAS-CHINA's Nightingale and the Rose, which wove synthetic biology into a timeless tale, reminding us that our technical designs are imbued with stories and emotions.
However, we take this further into the human experience. We wonder if bacteria can be coartists. By translating artistic visions into light signals for microbial pigment production, we create a tripartite dialogue between human, machine, and microbe.
Therefore, synthetic biology is the framework for this collaboration. It shows that sustainable and impactful innovations come from partnership, not domination. It's a way to listen to life's rhythms and respond creatively, using nucleotides and photons to paint a future where technology benefits ecological balance and human well-being.
Our solution
To realize the concept of the "microbial paintbrush", we use engineered E. coli as the carrier and rely on an optimized RGB light-sensing system to build a regulatory network for "light signal - gene expression - pigment synthesis". Specifically, blue, red and green light respectively trigger specific reactions, ultimately enabling the microbes to synthesize three types of pigments: indigo (blue), 6,6'-dibromoindigo (purple), and 4,4'-Dinitroindigo (green).
1. Blue Light – Synthesis of Indigo
Blue light acts as the "switch" of the entire system, responsible for activating the core pathway of indigo synthesis. This process is achieved through the collaborative work of the blue light-sensing module and the indigo synthesis module. When E. coli receives blue light signals, the indigo synthesis pathway is activated, and two key enzymes start to be expressed. These enzymes first convert tryptophan into indole, then hydroxylate indole, and finally produce indigo.
2. Red Light – Synthesis of 6,6'-dibromoindigo
Red light does not directly synthesize pigments; instead, it regulates the expression of halogenase to perform "halogenation modification" on tryptophan, thereby generating purple pigment. When irradiated with red light, the halogenase SttH is activated and begins to be expressed. The expressed SttH catalyzes the bromination of tryptophan to produce 6-bromotryptophan, which then undergoes reactions via the indigo pathway to eventually form purple 6,6'-dibromoindigo.
3. Green Light – Synthesis of 4,4'-Dinitroindigo
Green light operates on the same logic as red light: it regulates nitrase to conduct "nitration modification" on tryptophan, generating green pigment. When irradiated with green light, the nitrase gene is activated and expressed. Nitrase catalyzes the nitration of indole; the modified precursor then continues to be transformed along the indigo synthesis pathway, ultimately producing green 4,4'-Dinitroindigo.
The essence of our project is a "biological color palette". Blue light is responsible for initiating the synthesis of blue indigo; red and green light respectively modify indigo precursors through halogenation and nitration reactions to produce purple and green. By controlling the wavelength and irradiation area of light, we can make E. coli act like a "paintbrush", synthesizing pigments of corresponding colors at specific locations. This not only achieves the precise regulation of microbial metabolic pathways by synthetic biology but also turns microbes into a creative medium that connects science and art.