Living systems have not only the exemplary capability to fabricate materials (eg, wood,
bone) under ambient conditions but they also consist of living cells that imbue them with
properties like growth and self‐regeneration. Like a seed that can grow into a sturdy living
wood, can living cells alone serve as the primary building block to fabricate stiff materials?
Here is reported the fabrication of stiff living materials (SLMs) produced entirely from
microbial cells, without the incorporation of any structural biopolymers (eg, cellulose, chitin …

Living systems have not only the exemplary capability to fabricate materials (eg wood, bone)
under ambient conditions but they also consist of living cells that imbue them with properties
like growth and self-regeneration. Like a seed that can grow into a sturdy living wood, we
wondered: can living cells alone serve as the primary building block to fabricate stiff
materials? Here we report the fabrication of stiff living materials (SLMs) produced entirely
from microbial cells, without the incorporation of any structural biopolymers (eg cellulose …