MIT Engineers Bacterial Transistors With 24-Colony Circuits for Biological Computing
Updated
Updated · Gizmodo · Aug 20
MIT Engineers Bacterial Transistors With 24-Colony Circuits for Biological Computing
3 articles · Updated · Gizmodo · Aug 20
Summary
MIT researchers built living transistors from three strains of Pantoea agglomerans, showing bacterial circuits can relay biological signals and perform logic operations.
Five engineered strains supported the test system, with the largest circuit linking 24 bacterial colonies printed about 5 millimeters apart on tiny plates.
Each calculation takes roughly eight hours because signals spread through molecular diffusion, and the living computer remains stable for only about three days as colonies grow and change.
The team said the goal is not to replace electronic computers but to embed simple computation in biology, such as plant-root systems that detect stress, pests or other environmental threats over a growing season.
The study, published in Nature Chemical Biology, argues transistor-style signal gating could scale biological circuits more flexibly than earlier enzyme-based or single-cell approaches.