Bacteria Made to Behave as Computers

hende_jman writes "Scientists at Princeton University successfully 'programmed bacteria to behave like computers, assembling themselves into complex shapes based on instructions stuffed into their genes.' Though applications may not come for awhile, the article says that in the future this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals. The article also has pictures of the programmed E. coli."

Call me cynical...

[Anonymous Coward]

Though applications may not come for awhile, the article says that in the future this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals.

Call me cynical, but I think this technology will be used in devices to make and control bioterrorism chemicals. And not necessarily by the "bad guys" either.

Re:Call me cynical...

[Trent05]

So "Good Guy" terrorists are going to make and control bioterrorism chemicals???

Re:Call me cynical...

[Justin205]

...also known as "The Government of the United States of America"...

Re:Call me cynical...

[Trent05]

Whew! Just making sure the "USA = Evil, everyone else on the planet is good and only does evil things because of the US" groupthink mindset was still in place.

Re:+1 Amerikkka the victim

[Trent05]

Are you kidding, look at all the websites around the net. I live in a fascist dictatorship. The leader of my country is right up there with Hitler, the third biggest mass murder in history (Stalin & Mao Tse Tung taking the top two spots). To top that, I live in fear of the USA Patriot Act. That means I can be arrested by just PLANNING on blowing up buildings/landmarks/petting zoos. I tell you, the rest of the world has it pretty sweet compared to the toil of your average American's day-to-day life.

Re:+1 Amerikkka the victim

[Anonymous Coward]

dood, if you blow up a petting zoo, I want pictures

Re:+1 Amerikkka the victim

[KiroDude]

And now, if you live in florida, you can get shot just by looking menacing ...

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Man I am sorry to say but the contents of your post says nothing but 1894 doublethink has finally arrived.

God save us.

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[Atrax]

1894: [wikipedia.org] Aldous Huxley Born, Tower Bridge opens to vehicle traffic, Women In South Australia gain right to vote, among other things.

Nothing about this 'double think' of which you speak though

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[Atrax]

mod -1 missed the joke.

or maybe I had a sense of humour failure... that's as likely.

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[tokabola]

The United States of America are very involved in terrorism. Osama Bin Laden was trained in terrorism by the CIA. That's not "tin foil hat" talk, that's a known, admitted-by-the-CIA fact. The U.S. government has also been the force that got Pappa Doc, Manuel Noriega, and the Shah of Iran into power, just to name a few. These are verified, undisputed (by the government - hotly disputed by the "US can do no wrong" crowd) facts, not liberal propaganda. Even in Afghanistan, the Taliban was able to gain control because the people couldn't tolerate the warlords empowered by the CIA to fight the Russians. The same warlords placed back in power during the "liberation" of Afghanistan.

As for proof, there are plenty of records of this, available from the government itself through the Freedom of Information Act. The government freely admits to doing these things, and use the mistakes they made in the past to justify making the same mistakes again today. "We shouldn't have done that, but now they hate us so we have to kick their butts again" is standard operating procedure. That's not liberal hogwash - that's known fact - undisputed by anyone except a few obsessive nationalists like yourself.

The US government has sponsored and trained terrorists for over 40 years, all in the name of "peace" and "democracy". I'm not saying this because I hate America, but because I am an American patriot who believes in what the Constitution. The American government has enabled, encouraged, and full on participated in atrocities when ever the powers-that-be have decided it was expedient.

I don't condone terrorism, no matter who's committing it. But do you really think people would be willing to die just to hurt the US without any reason? Terrorism is the price America pays for it's hubris. While our pride and unrelenting arrogance don't justify terrorism, they are the root cause of it.

People like you, who throw out logic and compassion in exchange for jingoistic egotism are what is ruining the country I love. You are the people who talk about bringing Democracy to the world when we don't even truly have it in the US. The government brags about bringing "fair and impartial" elections to Iraq, because they can't brag about having them here in the US.

A true American Patriot follows his own morals, not his president. If your morals align with our current governments, then you are a traitor to the very ideals that are supposed to set us above all the commies and terrorists.

Tommy

BTW, I could have just modded you down for trolling, but I don't want people in other counties to think that most of America are as screwed up as you. It seemed more important to let people know that most Americans think you are an asshat. Unfortunately, after two illegal and constitutionally invalid elections most Americans have realized that "the people" no longer run America.

good think you didn't mod

[elgatozorbas]

BTW, I could have just modded you down for trolling, but I don't want people in other counties to think that most of America are as screwed up as you. It seemed more important to let people know that most Americans think you are an asshat.

Which was a good idea. I cannot speak for my whole country (Belgium, which has problems of its own, btw), let alone _all_ other countries of course. But the US are seen as ignorant navel-gazers who are surprised that terrorist attack them, and go and reinforce what THEY (U.S.) think is right, as a 'police of the world'. Attacking other countries under false pretences, holding prisoners without trial for years, not caring about treaties, not caring about shooting former hostages (Guiliana), just because that is part of their policital agenda. And then the US is surprised that nobody loves them.

So it is nice to see some Americans remember what democracy and freedom it was all about...

Re:good think you didn't mod

[kin_korn_karn]

I'm with you. I love my country and I always will, but I'm ashamed of its government.

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[Art Tatum]

It's not hubris. It's defense against the Soviet Union. You may be too young to remember, but there was a time when a nation called the USSR was working to invade 3rd world countries and amass an empire. We helped stop that. And the people in, for example, Afghanistan, were very grateful for our help. When it was over, though, we simply left and let radical Muslims take over.

No, they don't hate us 'for our freedom.' But they also don't hate us for opposing the USSR. They hate us because we won't subm

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[danila]

1) Soviet Union was not a colonialist state. It didn't "extract" resources from 3rd world countries, on the contrary, it poured resources into them. Ask any Egyptian, Cuban, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese or a person from any other country friendly to the USSR. Soviet Union provided immeasurable resources - specialists, technologies, training, equipment, everything in order to help its friends build powerful societies. The United States, as you well realise, does exactly the opposite.

2) Yeah, sorry for forget

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[GileadGreene]

MOST AMERICANS think like I do, and put the president back in power because he's doing a good job

I think you mispelled "51% of those Americans who bothered to vote."

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[argent]

Excuse me Sir, did you vote Nixon in 1972?

Hard as it is to imagine, the current US president makes me nostalgic for Nixon. Seriously. I don't think the US has had a president like George W Bush since Andrew Jackson promoted "spoilsmanship".

Re:The truth about the US and bin Laden

[Catullus]

The sources I could find don't appear to back up your claim. According to MSNBC [msnbc.com]:

bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the "reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.

According to an analyst quoted by the BBC [bbc.co.uk], "he received security training from the CIA itself". And with regard to the "Afghan Arabs", the Guardian [guardian.co.uk] says

Others point out that the military contribution of t

Re:mod -1 Americ-bashing

[danila]

How about Luis Posada Carriles? He is wanted by Venezuela for a plane bombing where about 70 people died. He is wanted in connection with numours assassination attemts by Cuba. He has proven ties with CIA and he is in Florida right now, seeking asylum. Interestingly, the US media is silent on the issue, with only a few article by Miami Herald and several brief mentions in some minor papers.

The United States is questioned in the UN, Cuba and Venezuela demand a response, but the US government is silent. They

Re:Call me OPTIMISTIC!

[Orgazmus]

An you, like most slashdotters, would settle for a girl shaped object?

They want a slice of the a funding cake

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The US govt will piss any amount of money at "Homeland Security". To get a slice of the action you just need to draw some tentative link between your new technology and the "War on terrorism".

Call me hopeful

[argent]

in the future this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals

I call the authors cynical, beabling on about "Homeland Security" because that's currently a good way to get funding.

I think this is going to be more useful for medicine, as another tool for quicker and more accurate diagnostic tests.

New Programming language

[hattan]

Bacteria.NET Sharp

First program:

[goombah99]

Perhaps the first program will be a cellular Autonoma simmulation. They could program it to play the game of Life.

Re:First program:

[koko775]

Thank you. My mind will now proceed to explode. This is at least as perverse as nested wine-cygwin installs, only worse.

Re:First program:

[tricorn]

Since it's been shown that Life can implement a Universal Turing Machine, that would be pretty cool. Pretty slow, too!

Re:First program:

[orn]

More likely it'll be "Hello, World."

Won't you be freaked out when your bacteria starts talking to you. :-)

GNU licence?

[goombah99]

Now here's a real opportunity for a GNU license. Since Cell's carry their own genomes (and plasmids) one is in effect distributing the source code when you distribute the bugs. Plus there's the real opportunity for Viral Marketing (yes I know mr Bio nazi, bacteria are not viruses).

Actually what I find interesting here is not the applications but the opportunity to study something that is intermediate to a single cellular organism community and a multi-cellualr organism: Geometrically coupled, self organ

Re:GNU licence?

[salvorHardin]

Perhaps Mr Adams wasn't so wrong in stating that Earth and everything on it was actually one big computer, running a very important program.

Re:GNU licence?

[Smidge204]

...so if you were infected with a bug that was protected under the GPL, would anything you create (perhaps considered a derivative work of YOU) have to be released under the GPL also?

Oh no... viral GPL... (ugh)
=Smidge=

swell...

[ErichTheWebGuy]

First, they made armed autonomous robots [slashdot.org], now it's smart bacteria that is potentially deadly... All that remains now is for the two to team up against their human opressors. I feel good about it.

Re:swell...

[rakeswell]

Well, someone yesterday made a comment about when they were in school, they were exhorted to list in their papers any military applications the technology might have in order to ensure securing additional research funding, etc. That was the first thing I thought of when I read "...this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals."

Sounds we'll be seeing a lot of technology with terrorism-fighting potential for a while to come.

Imagine...

[robpoe]

A Beow ... nevermind .. screw it..

I for one wel... naw, screw it

In Soviet Russia .. The bacter... laaaaame

the GN... err .. nevermind

Hmmm..

Re:Imagine...

[Spy der Mann]

No, it doesn't run Linux. But it can have VIRUSES! [google.com] :D

Re:Imagine...

[Frodo Crockett]

Yeah, but do they run Linux?

Try this one

[britneys 9th husband]

If we can make computers out of bacteria, we can probably make them out of viruses too.

And that virus computer at some point could be made to run Windows...

And if they build this computer in Moscow we'll be able to say...

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Windows runs on viruses!

Re:Imagine...

[Walt Dismal]

In other news, bacteria living in the intestines of a programmer have learned C and are attempting to write, well, really crappy code.

Re:Imagine...

[Dead Kitty]

A Beow ... nevermind .. screw it..

Can you imagine a culture of these things?

Re:Imagine...

[Smidge204]

In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster of welcomed Biological Computing Overlords make Linux run on YOU!

=Smidge=

Them bugs..

[ackthpt]

"Is that the old Life simulation?"

"No, it's a diagnostic."

Blood Music?

[Scud]

Anybody else have visions of the Greg Bear book "Blood Music" when you read this?

http://www.allscifi.com/Topics/info_5673.asp?BSID= 17562821 [allscifi.com]

Re:Blood Music?

[Snowdog668]

I loved it as a short story but as a book it just didn't work for me. He just seemed to ramble on into nothing. It just became a typical "End of the World" story, well, end of life as we know it anyway. That and the fact that even the novel version was only a 90 minute read makes it seem to me that he really didn't have much else to say.

I've liked a couple other of his novels that I've read. Perhaps if I hadn't read the short story first (several times) I would have appreciated the novel version more..

Virus

[AFairlyNormalPerson]

All they need to do now is do this to a virus... then maybe we can give the virus a virus. Kinda funny, but it would be cool if it led to the desctuction of aids.

Re:Virus

[zbyte64]

Here's the flaw with that simple idea:

Viruses are simply encapsulated DNA with simple crap - they don't manufacture anything. Instead they use other cells to manufacture more of themselves. So a Virus for a Virus would mean for every bad virus in your system, you would need one anti manufactured. Anyevent, now if u had engineered bacteria that i guess would be the equivilant of a "honeypot" in that a viral latches on, but the engineered bacteria destroys incomming DNA etc. But then that would mean the bacteria would be very resistant to various forms of genetic therapy. Just imagine what would happen if the bacteria grew out of control (they need a food source), or mutated into something rlly bad. Do i need to elaborate?

Anyways, im more worried about new bacteria that is now resistant to antibacterial soap and such. Many of those strains are friggen hard to kill. Granted i could imagine engineering bacteria to kill this.

I know im just rambling on here, so lemme just sum up what would probably needed to be done to help ensure this new disease fighting bacteria doesn't become our worse nightmare:
Engineered life cycle, ie a counter for how many times the bacteria can reproduce
Possible activating agent? Have these bacteria only work if a certain protein is present, etc
Deactivating agent - simply again, something innate that can be introduced into the blood stream that would cause the bacteria to dismantle itself.
The odds of the bacteria mutating such that the life cycle and the deactivating agent is ignored before the life cycle is expired would hopefully be enough. Then also consider your body's natural immune system,

I have no clue how long it would be before bioengineers can do all this, but it is most exiciting

Re:Virus

[NichG]

Trying to put detailed controls on the things is probably a losing proposition. Think of it this way - a bacterium with those controls is less well-adapted than one without it, so if you're trying to introduce that control as a protection against a hostile mutation, then its just as likely that a mutation removes the control as it is that it introduces some other negative effect.

As far as the dangers of genetic engineering, I'm not all that convinced there's much we can do to directly make something that a

Medical Potential

[Fox_1]

The researchers programmed E. coli bacteria to emit red or green fluorescent light in response to a signal emitted from another set of E. coli. The living cells were commanded to make a bull's-eye pattern, for example, around central cells based on communication between the bacteria. The bacteria "have an exquisite capability to sense molecules in the environment," he said.( Ron Weiss) "The bull's-eye could tell you: This is where the anthrax is."
Pretty fascinating stuff, stuff like bacteria and viruses have been kicking our asses for years really, sure antibiotics gave us a temporary edge, but now we have super dooper antibiotic resistant versions. All our approaches have really been hit and miss, but now we can develop and program our own little bacteria super soldiers and fight them on their own terms with intelligent strategy backing us up.

Re:Medical Potential

[IWannaBeAnAC]

The only problem is that the attackers will always be one step ahead of the defenders. The defenders will need time to analyze the bacteria, develop the program and distribute it. If the attacker is clever enough then the population of North America would already have hit zero by the time that is done.

Re:Medical Potential

[geschild]

You do understand that once the 'wild' varieties come into contact with you 'little super soldiers' the evolutionairy race is on again, and now on a whole new level.

What if these wild bacteria start to mutate and, through whatever mechanism, acquire the capabilities of the 'super soldiers'. What will prevent the wild bacteria to become 'super bacteria'? As long as we don't understand enough, I vote we keep our hands off...

A heart, a flower, and a bulls-eye?

[condour75]

Next week, in an even bigger scientific breakthrough, they're going to advance to images of mickey mouse, a human breast, and a zero.

Awesome

[dirtsurfer]

It's amazing how you can control an organism's behavoir by altering it's DNA.

*yawn* Welp, time to go look at pictures of naked girls.

Bacteria + Windows = Nightmare

[jordie]

I can only imagine what wonderful ideas Micro$oft is coming up with right now... Imagine your 'computer' crashing and growing all over your house.

Re:Bacteria + Windows = Nightmare

[Spy der Mann]

"All your face are belong to us."

Hmmm... has potential :)

Re:Bacteria + Windows = Nightmare

[LordEd]

Or if it infects the water supply [technoir.org] and spreads....

Re:Bacteria + Windows = Nightmare

[Nefarious Wheel]

Windows 2095 - Who do you want to infect today?

Wired Article

[Brendor]

Wired did an article about a similar notion back in 1995 [wired.com] which was rather interesting at the time.

What happen when they die...

[__aaclcg7560]

Bacteria computers... When they die, they really do shrivel up and die. No more blue screen of death... but someone will still have to clean up the mess. Go figure.

here we come

[phreakv6]

not long before someone ports my p2p app for this platform

Prey?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Anyone else read "Prey" by Micheal Crichton? If so, does any of this sound framiliar? hmmmmmmmmmmm

Re:Prey?

[Spy Hunter]

Anyone else read "Prey" by Micheal Crichton?

Yeah, and I feel stupider just for having done so. It reads like a bad novelization of a "major motion picture". As I read the book, I could just see Crichton sitting there thinking "OK, now I'll write in a couple cool CG special-effects shots for the movie".

I hear the movie deal was done before the book even came out. Unfortunately the plot and characters were overlooked, there's not a shred of originality in the whole thing. And the science doesn't even bear talking about.

I liked Jurassic Park, and Sphere was awesome, but his latest stuff is just trash. Crichton should just admit he knows very little about real science and go back to writing enjoyable science fiction that doesn't pretend to be a commentary on society's faith in technology and the scientific community.

Re:Prey?

[marko123]

He runs his screenplays through a stripping program that results in a novel based on a major motion picture. Try reading Timeline, too.

I FOUND

[NoGuffCheck]

a betterpicture [blogware.com]of bacteria assembling themselves into complex shapes based on instructions stuffed into their genes

Flower!?

[decipher_saint]

Flower my ass, it's a honeycomb dammit!

'Honeycomb's big, yeah yeah yeah! It's not small, no no no!' [x-entertainment.com]

This explains a lot

[3770]

This explains why I could calculate PI to 1 000 000 decimals in 1.8 seconds the last time I was sick.

Re:This explains a lot

[Gopal.V]

>why I could calculate PI to 1 000 000 decimals in 1.8 seconds the last time I was sick.

Overclocking ?. Mmm.. that explains that thermal signature.

Re:This explains a lot

[FidelCatsro]

You think thats bad , last time i got food poisoning i expelled a unified field theory

Aha! Secrets of IBM's Cell processor, revealed!

[xmark]

Oops, wrong thread...thought I had something there for moment.

yes but...

[Kensho]

Can they run Tiger? //you thought i was going to say Linux didn't you.

Soo....??

[Creepy Crawler]

Is it safe to run Norton A/V on this?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Careful

[Bones3D_mac]

If they start generating an AT field, kiss your ass goodbye.

Re:Careful

[GQuon]

Well, yeah, with the armed robots [slashdot.org] allready in place, all we need now is some whiny teenager to top it off.

Perhaps the UCLA will succeed in seperating religion and state? Unfortunately, that won't save us. They'll just succeed in getting the "angels/apostles" renamed into "the differently DNA sequenced"...

SPOILERS ahoy [animeinfo.org]

I see it now...

[Bananatree3]

[50 years in the future]

[me] My %$#&#@@!!! E.Coli Computer keeps running slowly, too dangerous to my health, and is a waste of my time compared to it's electronic counterpart. Maybe if I sprinke a little um, penicillin on it, it might make it run faster [supressed snicker].

Re:I see it now... (OT)

[zappepcs]

Perhaps, to get your e coli computer to run faster, try exlax rather than penicillin?

e coli inside

[Camel Pilot]

forget quantum computing I want to be the first on the block to have a fecal matter computer.

Re:e coli inside

[SidV]

What to go with your piece of sh*t car. ;)

Is it just me?

[zappepcs]

Is it just me that wonders why science can run along happily trying to create in reality what science fiction has been creating decades before it, yet seemingly blatantly ignoring all the lessons that were there to be learned in the science fiction stories?

Seems like there is some conspiracy, but something tells me that its just stupid human tricks to do things to see if they can, then stand back and wonder why it all went wrong?

Yes, it would be good to have programmed virii that might devour an oil spill then die harmlessly, or bacteria that can be injected into a chemical spill to clean it up, or down an oil well to preprocess the crude to make it easily recoverd from the ground....

Its just that no one seems to be working on figuring out the dangers at the same time as people are working on the possibilities...

Re:Is it just me?

[bloodyghol]

You would really think some areas of science would just be abandoned after all those science gone wrong books/movies/games. I mean seriously, if I find out that the US government is still trying to open a gate to hell, I'm going to be pissed. There are all of three games and an upcoming movie (although that may not count) that seam to be sending the don't open a gate to hell because it's really, really bad for you message.

Of course, all of these types of advancements can be the gate to hell, but often of

Unfortunately

[mcc]

Unfortunately the scientists in this case were all reading Asimov and Heinlein, and so believed that all they had to do was be very smart and discover things and much younger beautiful women would unexpectedly materialize and fall in love with them for no apparent reason.

This rather dampened the stories' also-present warnings in their mind.

*shakes fist* ASIMOV, YOUR INABILITY TO WRITE BELIEVABLE THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEMALE CHARACTERS HAS DAMNED THE VERY EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY!

Re:Unfortunately

[zappepcs]

Now, THAT is funny.... and should be in a science fiction novel starring Jon Stewart!

Re:Is it just me?

[hankaholic]

Is it just me that wonders why science can run along happily trying to create in reality what science fiction has been creating decades before it, yet seemingly blatantly ignoring all the lessons that were there to be learned in the science fiction stories?

This would be more valid if the majority of the sci-fi out there weren't utter crap. You didn't provide more specific examples of non-crap, and spoke quite vaguely of "figuring out the dangers".

Assume teleportation were possible. Would you suggest w

Move over Neurons

[DumbSwede]

I doubt that binary computing will ever be done efficiently with biological components, but I have to wonder if it might be easier to use self assembling bacteria structures to build powerful neural like nets for things like pattern recognition, or possibly self assembling neural interfaces that integrate more easily with the cortex than crude electrodes.

Coming soon, debugging bugs.

Covered in Scientific American May 2004

[B.D.Mills]

There was an article on similar technology in the May 2004 edition of Scientific American. More info here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0009FCA 4-1A8F-1085-94F483414B7F0000&sc=I100322/ [sciam.com].

Oh the humanity...

[ta bu shi da yu]

Bacteria based computers? My computer was wiped out by a virus, you insensitive clod!

nice comparison

[Dr.Opveter]

Bacteria have been programmed to behave like computers, assembling themselves into complex shapes based on instructions stuffed into their genes.

The last time i saw a computer assembling itself into a complex shape it didn't need instructions to accomplish that. Gravity is pretty much all it took.

Question

[mcc]

Once we've reached this point, seriously, how close to nanotechnology are we? What are the limits of this technology? It seems to me like bacteria are basically rather sophisticated nanomachines. If this article isn't hyperbole and we can basically program bacteria... well, at first glance it seems like we could just skip the entire hard part of nanomachinery construction and use the nanomachines nature's built for us.

Failing that, I like the idea of a computer-slaved zombified bacteria invasion.

<Steve

Relevant research publications

[FleaPlus]

::digs around for relevant info::

First off, here's the web page for Ron Weiss [princeton.edu], the scientist mentioned in the article.

Here's (what I think is) the relevant publication on the topic:

A synthetic multicellular system for programmed pattern formation [nature.com]

Subhayu Basu, Yoram Gerchman, Cynthia H. Collins, Frances H. Arnold and Ron Weiss

Nature 434, 1130-1134 (28 April 2005)

Pattern formation is a hallmark of coordinated cell behaviour in both single and multicellular organisms1, 2, 3. It typically involves cellcell communication and intracellular signal processing. Here we show a synthetic multicellular system in which genetically engineered 'receiver' cells are programmed to form ring-like patterns of differentiation based on chemical gradients of an acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL) signal that is synthesized by 'sender' cells. In receiver cells, 'band-detect' gene networks respond to user-defined ranges of AHL concentrations. By fusing different fluorescent proteins as outputs of network variants, an initially undifferentiated 'lawn' of receivers is engineered to form a bullseye pattern around a sender colony. Other patterns, such as ellipses and clovers, are achieved by placing senders in different configurations. Experimental and theoretical analyses reveal which kinetic parameters most significantly affect ring development over time. Construction and study of such synthetic multicellular systems can improve our quantitative understanding of naturally occurring developmental processes and may foster applications in tissue engineering, biomaterial fabrication and biosensing.

This conference abstract is also pretty darned cool:

Dynamic Control in a Coordinated Multi-Cellular Maze Solving System [paperplaza.net]

Hsu, Allen (Princeton Univ.), Vijayan, Vikram (Princeton Univ.), Fomundam, Lawrence (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County), Gerchman, Yoram (Princeton Univ.), Basu, Subhayu (Princeton Univ.), Karig, David (Princeton Univ.), Hooshangi, Sara (Princeton Univ.), Weiss, Ron (Princeton Univ.)

2005 American Control Conference

Control system theory provides convenient tools and concepts for describing and analyzing complex cell functions. In this paper we demonstrate the use of control theory to forward-engineer a complex synthetic gene network constructed from several modular components. Specifically, we present the design and simulation of a synthetic multi-cellular maze-solving system. Here, bacterial cells are programmed to use artificial cell-to-cell communication and regulatory feedback in order to illuminate the correct path in a user-defined maze of cells arranged on a surface. Simulations were used to analyze the system's spatiotemporal dynamics and sensitivity to various kinetic parameters. Experiments with Escherichia coli were carried out to characterize the diffusion properties of artificial cell-to-cell communication based on bacterial quorum sensing systems. The rational design process and simulation tools employed in this study provide an example for future engineering of complex synthetic gene networks comprising multiple control system motifs.

The MIT Standard Registry of Biological Parts

[supersat]

Last week, Dr. Drew Endy from MIT gave a talk to the University of Washington's CSE department on Building Biological Systems (PowerPoint slides are here [mit.edu]).

At first glance, building biological systems seems like a pretty daunting task. You have all of these As, Ts, Gs, and Cs, and your task is to figure out how to order them to make your system work as specified. And unlike computers that were engineered by humans, the biological mechanisms that work on DNA aren't completely understood.

However, a promising method of engineering biological systems is to abstract them into systems, devices, and parts. One of the interesting things they're doing is building a repository of biological parts, available at http://parts.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]. These parts use a standardize way of communicating with each other, allowing you to combine them easily.

Using these parts, college students are able to engineer biological systems in a single quarter. In fact, there's been a few intercollegiate biological engineering competitions, linked to from the MIT Parts site.

But what happens..

[Klowner]

What happens when the E. Coli bacteria learn how to assemble themselves into a delicious looking Oreo (tm) cookie and mass crapping ensues? Sounds more like bio-terrorism rather than a detector of it.

Why the constant terrorism references??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Though applications may not come for awhile, the article says that in the future this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals." Come on, do we really need to have the terrorism angle pointed out for every new technology that comes along??? It's BS to get science funding cause apparently the only R&D budget the U.S. still subsidizes is military and anti-terrorism. I swear, it's only a matter of time before people start trying to claim research into the drag coefficient of s

Spam determined to behave as bacteria

[gbulmash]

In a recent scientific study of spam, it was found to mindlessly reproduce, leave a scummy surface on anything they touched, and mutate rapidly in response to efforts to stop its spread.

- G

WARNING

[jlebrech]

WARNING eating you computer may cause severe health problems.

boy, what bullshit

[cahiha]

If he had managed to get bacteria to arrange themselves in a bulls-eye or heart pattern, that would be sort of neat. Not really science, and not really useful, but sort of neat.

However, what he has actually done is arrange bacteria in a bulls-eye or heart pattern around some sort of preexisting central source(s). The difference may seem slight to a computer scientist, but it is completely different from a biological point of view. Arrangement around a source is a much easier problem.

Good gawd. Programming bacteria

[pg110404]

I hope they don't take commenting their code too seriously.

Woops, this gene sequence explains what that other gene sequence does but somehow the checksum triggered it to override the other one so now it runs amok eating everything in its path.

If we ever kill ourselves off as the dominant species and those bacteria evolve into a new life form that then looks at its gene sequence, I wonder what they'd think?

'This following section here keys in on seron gas and will grow an extra appendage - a mouth in this

e. coli, it figures

[Quirk]

This seems to recall the principle of the lampost. You know, guy looses his keys on a walk home; looks for them under the lampost, not because he thinks that's where he lost them, but because it's brighter there. E. Coli is one of the most intensely studied organisms and, a lampost, of sorts.

"The Nobel Prizes earned by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod are but two of the dozen that by my account are affiliated with E. coli [66.102.7.104]. The overall scientific literature alluding to E. coli now encompasses over 100,000 p

Licensing

[pklong]

Microsoft are said to be very interested in this new technology. They have released a provisional price list of 100 dollars per processor OEM. 269 dollars per processor Retail.

Role reversal

[ChaoticSilly]

Software has had bugs forever. Now the bugs have software.

Overclocking those suckers

[Mad Merlin]

I wonder if they'd be overclocking tolerant, and if so, I also wonder how well they'd work in a beowulf cluster...

Re:you know where to get e. Coli?

[LordEd]

Bacteria follows a windows model. Starts small on your system, but will grow and take more of your resources. It will grow until you either medicate the host (misc repair utils, uninstall, etc), or the host simply dies (reformat).

Re:you know where to get e. Coli?

[pklong]

Presumably you get iColi from Apple and gnuColi from Redhat?

Re:air conditioner invented

[DeathPenguin]

Seriously... I hate to get off topic, but it seems like more and more new technologies are jumping on the 'terrorist detection' bandwagon when they lack more practical applications. I especially love the part where they specify "bioterrorism chemicals" or whatever, as if a primitive computer made of organic cells can detect them any better than a computer with a crapload of transistors can simply because of their biological nature.

Hey, I've invented a great new device that can also be used as an anti-bioterror device! I call it a "dog," and with its evolved processor (A "brain" as some like to call it) it can monitor and detect chemical and biological agents with a special probe called a "nose." Give me money!

Re:wow, combating terrorism, great

[spacecowboy420]

Sure gets you grant money though...