MIT engineers connect bacteria to create living transistors

MIT researchers have engineered bacteria as living transistors—cellular switches that perform biological computations when networked together. Rather than electrical signals, these circuits transmit information through chemical molecules flowing between colonies of bacteria printed on growth medium. The team created two transistor types and three relay strains that can be wired together to perform various logic operations, including a twenty-four-colony circuit that adds two numbers. According to MIT News, each calculation takes about eight hours—far slower than silicon chips, but the researchers say that pace is practical for biological systems. Eventually, these circuits could coat plant roots, where they might sense environmental stress like drought or pest damage and respond by synthesizing protective compounds. The research, led by postdoc Hamid Doosthosseini under Christopher Voigt, head of MIT's Department of Biological Engineering, appears in Nature Chemical Biology.

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