Live computers are being developed by bacteria

bacteria

Computers are evolving, literally. And they’re doing so fast. While the tech world argues netbooks vs notebooks, synthetic biologists are leaving traditional computers behind altogether. A team of US scientists have engineered bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems faster than anything made from silicon, reports the Guardian.co.uk.
The research, published on Saturday in
the Journal of Biological Engineering, proves that bacteria can actually be used to solve a puzzle known as the Hamiltonian Path Problem. This deceptively simple problem is difficult to solve with over 3.5 million possible combination in a problem with 10 variables. A regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the best possible answer. Alternatively, a computer made from millions of bacteria can look at every route simultaneously. The biological world also has other advantages. As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce.


But cool as it sounds, programming such a computer is a mean task. The researchers involved coded a simplified version of the problem, using just three variables, by modifying the DNA of Escherichia coli (E Coli) bacteria. The variables were represented by a combination of genes causing the bacteria to glow red or green, and the possible combination between the variables were explored by the random shuffling of DNA. Bacteria producing the correct answer glowed both colours, turning them yellow.
The experiment worked, and the scientists checked the yellow bacteria’s answer by examining their DNA sequence. By using additional genetic differences such as resistance to particular antibiotics, the team believe their method could be expanded to solve problems involving more cities.
This is not the only problem bacteria can solve. The research builds on previous work by the same team, who last year created a bacterial computer to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem, which is a mathematical sorting process that can be visualized as a stack of pancakes, all burnt on one side, which must be ordered by size.
In addition to proving the power of bacterial computing, the team have also contributed significantly to the field of synthetic biology.

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