Cells can be programmed into living devices: Here’s how

[Image from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University]

Synthetic biologists at Harvard University have programmed microbial cells into living devices that can produce drugs, fine chemicals and biofuels and detect disease-causing agents.

A team of biologists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering fit cells with artificial molecular machinery that could sense stimuli like toxins in the environment, metabolite levels and inflammatory signals. The circuits it creates work similar to electronic currents; they process information and make logic-guided decisions. The difference between the electronic circuits and the biological circuits is the biological ones have to be made from molecular components that cells make and the need to be able to operate in crowded and changing environments within each cell.

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