Scientists Create Programmable Bacteria

wilmavanwyk writes "In research that further bridges the biological and digital world, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco have created bacteria that can be programmed like a computer. Researchers built 'logic gates' – the building blocks of a circuit – out of genes and put them into E. coli bacteria strains. The logic gates mimic digital processing and form the basis of computational communication between cells, according to synthetic biologist Christopher A. Voigt."

Comments

Can't resist urge to make bad pun..,

[antifoidulus]

But how will they be able to find "bugs" in their program when the program is all bugs? Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week, try the fish, the bacteria in it all programmed in Sea.... Oh I did it again!

I apologize profusely for whatever pain the above might have caused.

Re:Can't resist urge to make bad pun..,

[Metabolife]

"Today marks a milestone for the computer science and pharmaceutical industries. Partnering with one of the software industry giants, Roche Pharmaceuticals today unveiled the future of fighting rapidly mutating semi-lifeforms. Thanks to Norton Antivirus, no human body will ever be unprotected again!"

Please note that losing the ability to run or perform other activities quickly is a known and acceptable side-effect.

That leads to a joke

[Chrisq]

What do the University of California E-coli research team and Microsoft have in common?

They are both full of shit programmers

Killer app

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally we're gonna see a decent implementation of Conway's Game of Life!

Antibiotics?

[MichaelSmith]

Say you could tailor a bacteria to attack or compete with a bacteria which you needed to control. As the target mutates your attack vector could be reprogrammed accordingly.

Or how about extending the idea to build a programmable immune system? If the patients immune system has crashed you just feed in tailored bugs to keep infection under control.

Tinfoil Hat

[Aldenissin]

No matter how tight I wear my tinfoil hat, unless it is actually a full body suit and electrified on the outside, I think this will obsolete it. Imagine, cells turn cancerous if your black, gay, white, short, don't have any certain genetic or set of genetic markers. If you leave a certain atmospheric pressure, like come down off your mountain prison it reacts to a change in your body. If you pass or leave a magnetic field (or it accidentally loses power) you're a goner. I could go on and on.

  While I can also think of the wonders this could allow, I think more of what could easily go wrong. When you have American scientists laughing because they gave the Russian's leukemia on accident with an early vaccine test, this doesn't make me feel any better.

Trek becomes Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

In the TNG episode "The Chase", it's discovered that aliens seeded the oceans of various planets with life and placed part of a computer program into the DNA distributed on each planet. When the various races (humans, vulvans, cardassians, etc) put the code together a billion years later they find an ancient race has left us a holographic message of goodwill and peace.

We Must do this! Except we change the message to play "Never gonna give you up", Rick Astley built right into the DNA of all living beings forevermore. Just waiting to be found in a billion years. Most epic troll ever.

possible original source

[anonymousNR]

Robust multicellular computing using genetically encoded NOR gates and chemical ‘wires’
I am not a Biologist. Can some one verify if this is the original paper?

Re:Yes but...

[Ihmhi]

Does it run Linux?

Yes, but as a side effect it causes open sores.