It’s a long way to go before we have bacteria that can read a novel. But researchers have tested bacteria that have been genetically modified so that in groups they can spot certain prime numbers among a set of digits, and spot vowels in a text.
They can even perform a complex calculation: the maximum number of portions that can be cut from a pizza.
In fact, the number of tasks they can perform is limited to 12. And they can only spot prime numbers that are between 0 and 9.
Biological computer
But the goal set by the team of biophysicists and geneticists at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in India was to demonstrate the feasibility of an old idea, called the “biological computer”: could “biological microchips” one day compete with traditional microchips in terms of speed and cost?
Their research appeared in the journal Nature Chemical Biology . Up to 14 bacteria worked in a sort of modular fashion, assembling in different ways to solve different tasks.
Derived from the classic Escherichia coli , these bacteria therefore group together in various ways to solve the “riddle” presented to them.
A bacterium is normally referred to as a single-celled organism, but researchers describe this “team” work as being comparable to that of a multicellular organism.
Another analogy is that of neurons: these bacteria become the equivalent of an artificial network of neurons.
However, before we can consider that we are facing the future of computing, these bacteria have a lot of work ahead of them.