A research group made up of joint collaborations between MIT and Technion has scientists designing and programming a living computer. The plasmid’s genetic sequence was programmed to function as a simple computer, or more specifically, a simple artificial neural network. The process involved inserting genetic material into bacterial cell in the form of a plasmid: a relatively short DNA molecule that remains separate from the bacteria’s “natural” genome. As known, various function plasmids exists freely in nature and the research group was able to design and program specifically, a simple artificial neural network. This was done by means of several genes on the plasmid regulating each other’s activation and deactivation according to outside stimuli.
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The questions most people ask are:
How can a computer be biological? What does it really mean, a living cell, a circuit?
In the simplest form and explanation, a computer consists of 0s and 1s, of switches. Operations are performed on these switches: from summing operations to getting the maximal or minimal value between them, etc. And the more advanced operations are built upon the basic ones, which made it possible for a computer to play chess or fly a rocket to the moon without human involvement. Imagine, the possibility of what biological computers can do then, through scientists having designed and programmed a living computer (or perhaps rebellion)?
In “electronic computers,” transistors form the 0/1 switches. Our cells, on the other hand, are also computers, albeit of a different sort. Biologically, the presence or absence of a molecule can act as a switch. Genes are activated, triggered, or suppressed by other genes, forming, modifying, or removing molecules. Synthetic biology is a branch of biology that aims to harness these processes as well as synthesize the switches and program the genes that would allow a bacterial cell to perform complex tasks. Living cells are equipped naturally to sense chemicals and produce organic molecules within its environment. The scientists embarking on the challenge of being able to “computerize” these processes within the cell could have major implications for biomanufacturing and have numerous medical applications.
The group scientists designed and programmed the living computer were Ph.D students were Luna Rizik and Loai Danial (now doctors) together with Dr. Mouna Habib. They worked under the guidance of Prof. Ramez Daniel in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at Technion Institute. And in collaboration with Prof. Ron Weiss from the Synthetic Biology Center, MIT, were wowed and inspired by how artificial neural networks function. They collectively created synthetic computation circuits by combining existing genetic “parts,” or engineered genes, in novel ways, and implemented concepts from neuromorphic.
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