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One of our members, Douglas Blackiston, harvested skin cells from frog embryos, and used them to create passive structures, while heart cells acted as tiny motors thanks to their regular contractions. These initial designs helped us to understand how the configuration of cells impacted their behaviour, which in turn allowed Josh Bongard and his then PhD student Sam Kriegman to create computer simulations of these synthetic organisms. Bycombining these simulations with evolutionary algorithms that replicate the processes of natural selection, we were able to generate thousands of new designs. The resulting xenobots were able to walk, swim, carry loads and even work together as a swarm to tidy up piles of microscopic debris.\n\nBy poking and prodding them into place according to the AI-generated xenobot blueprint, and relying on cells' natural inclination to adhere to each other, we pieced together a variety of simple structures. 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Crucially, this does not require an exhaustive understanding of the internal mechanisms of the cells themselves — no synthetic biology or genetic engineering was required to create our Xenobots, as we use a kind of behaviour shaping strategy to collaborate with the cells' inherent capacities.\n\nIn much the same way as you don't need to understand the neurology of a dog to train it, we are discovering that we can guide the behaviour of cell groups by manipulating their environment and the signals they receive; our on-going efforts will exploit chemical and electrical cues to shift the native collective behaviours of the cells toward desired morphogenetic and behavioural goals.\n\nThis project could not have happened without the use of AI to automate our design process. We calculated that actually building all of the designs our evolutionary algorithm explored would have taken 12 million years. Now we are working on automating manufacturing too, which will allow us to carry out the high-throughput experiments that are needed to hone our techniques.\n\nThat will also lay the groundwork for commercialisation. While it is still early days, xenobots are just the beginning of a massive field of computer-designed organisms. The technology is so fundamental that it is difficult to imagine all the possible applications. Living cells have a huge amount of in-built machinery for sensing, communicating and even navigating, all of which could be repurposed for a wide variety of use cases. And, as seen in the brain, cells of all kinds can form networks that perform computation and morphogenesis in ways that would be very difficult to implement bottom-up.\n\nAn early application is likely to be biosensors that are designed to detect dangers such as pathogens or gas leaks. These would take advantage of a biological system's ability to pick up signals in real-time and rapidly amplify them. Tiny biological robots also have clear future applications in aqueous environments, where they could autonomously navigate into hard-to-reach places to make measurements or clean up toxins.\n\nUltimately, these biological robots may be able to carry out these kinds of roles inside the human body: chasing down bacteria, killing cancer cells, helping heal wounds, or cleaning up arthritic knee joints. Stringent clinical testing requirements mean that this is likely many years away, but these devices' innate capabilities and biocompatibility could see them quickly overtake the man-made nanobots many are investigating for medical applications.\n\nAt a more foundational level, the approaches we have pioneered will be a powerful tool for deciphering the morphogenetic code. Learning how to design, program and control these xenobots is likely to teach us profound lessons about the way the human body organises itself. This could lead to major breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, potentially allowing us to coax our own cells into repairing birth defects, healing organs or re-growing lost limbs.\n\nDemocratising this technology will be key to realising that potential. That is why we have made our research freely available, and open-sourced the software used to design our xenobots. But it is crucial that we start anticipating future developments in this field: the technology's relative simplicity and wide applicability means that it is not likely to remain in the lab for long.\n\nThe technology should raise profound philosophical questions too. It seems inevitable that xenobots are likely to blur the lines between machines and organisms, and will start to chip away at notions of human, and even biological, exceptionalism that underpin much of Western philosophy. 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Policy","title":null,"slug":"privacy-policy","path":"/privacy-policy"},"summary":{"text":"Humankind is facing global challenges that are placing people and the planet under stress and in great uncertainty.\n\nAt the same time, breakthroughs in science and technology are occurring at an unprecedented pace – but the full ramifications of these breakthroughs are not always evident.\n\nAnticipation, therefore, is key to building the future by fully leveraging the potential of new science and technology advances to improve well-being and promote inclusive development.\n\nThe Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) Foundation was created in 2019 in Geneva to tackle this issue, as a think tank and do tank."},"thumbnail":{"url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/shapeable/image/upload/v1760413449/gesda-platform/site/gesda-radar-website_thumbnail__Screenshot_2025-10-14_at_11.42.59_o2cgxm.png"},"openGraph":{"title":"GESDA","date":"2026-09-16T00:16:49.08","description":{"plain":"Humankind is facing global challenges that are placing people and the planet under stress and in great uncertainty.\nAt the same time, breakthroughs in science and technology are occurring at an unprecedented pace – but the full ramifications of these breakthroughs are not always evident.\nAnticipation, therefore, is key to building the future by fully leveraging the potential of new science and technology advances to improve well-being and promote inclusive development.\nThe Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) Foundation was created in 2019 in Geneva to tackle this issue, as a think tank and do tank.\n"},"image":{"url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/shapeable/image/upload/v1760413449/gesda-platform/site/gesda-radar-website_thumbnail__Screenshot_2025-10-14_at_11.42.59_o2cgxm.png","type":"image/png","thumbnails":{"full":{"url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/shapeable/image/upload/v1760413449/gesda-platform/site/gesda-radar-website_thumbnail__Screenshot_2025-10-14_at_11.42.59_o2cgxm.png"}}}},"termsAndConditions":{"text":""},"privacyPolicy":{"text":"At the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (hereafter referred to as ‘GESDA’), we respect your privacy. We want to ensure that you get the information, content, and experiences that matter most to you. GESDA is committed to protecting the privacy of its stakeholders, communities, and other contacts.\n\n## Scope\n\nThis privacy policy applies to all personal data processed by full-time and part-time employees, volunteers when acting on behalf of GESDA, contractors and partners doing business on behalf of GESDA, as well as all legal entities, all operating locations in all countries, and all business processes conducted by GESDA.\n\n## Information Collected\n\n#### What information do we collect?\n\nGESDA collects the following personal data in line with the use purposes explained in a subsequent section:\n\n  * Your name and contact details\n  * Online profile data/usage\n  * Contact information\n  * Social media profile information\n  * Education and professional information\n  * Registration and participation in GESDA events and activities - Information about service usage\n  * Cookies\n  * Authentication data\n  * Location information\n  * Author and peer review information\n  * Other information you upload or provide to us\n\n#### How do we use your information?\n\nGESDA uses (and, where specified, shares) your personal information for the following purposes:\n\n  * To provide support or other services. GESDA may use your personal information to provide you with support or other services that you have ordered or requested. GESDA may also use your personal information to respond directly to your requests for information, including registrations for webinars, or other specific requests, or pass your contact information to the appropriate GESDA supplier or reseller for further follow-up related to your interests.\n  * To provide information based on your needs and respond to your requests. GESDA may use your personal information to provide you with notices of new product releases and service developments.\n  * To administer products. GESDA may contact you if you make use of (digital) products we offer, to confirm certain information (for example, that you did not experience problems in a download process). We may also use this information to confirm compliance with licensing and other terms of use and may share it with your company/institution.\n  * To assist in your participation in GESDA activities. GESDA will communicate with you, if you are participating in certain GESDA activities such as the GESDA Summit, authoring or reviewing a GESDA article, or GESDA humanitarian activities. GESDA may send you information such as update messages related to those activities (such as but not limited to the event's content, and event logistics)\n  * To update you on relevant GESDA events and opportunities. GESDA may communicate with you regarding relevant GESDA events and opportunities.\n  * To protect GESDA content and services. We may use your information to prevent potentially illegal activities and to enforce our terms and conditions.\n  * To get feedback or input from you. In order to deliver products and services of most interest to our stakeholders, from time to time, we may ask you to provide us input and feedback (for example through surveys).\n\n#### How can you control your information?\n\nYou can control the information we have about you and how we use as follows:\n\n  * If you are a registered guest for the GESDA Annual Summit 2021, any request for review, revise or correction of your personal data can be sent to summit@global.gesda specifying your request.\n\n#### Personal data about minors and children\n\nGESDA does not knowingly collect data from or about children under 16 without the permission of parent(s)/guardian(s). If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under age 16, please contact us.\n\n#### How will you know if the Privacy Policy is changed?\n\nGESDA may update its Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any material changes you will be notified by means of a notice on our website prior on the date the change becomes effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.\n\n## Technical And Regulatory Information\n\n#### Logging practices\n\nGESDA automatically records the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of visitors. The IP address is a unique number assigned to every computer on the internet. Generally, an IP address changes each time you connect to the internet (it is a \"dynamic\" address). Note, however, that if you have a broadband connection, depending on your individual circumstance, the IP address that we collect may contain information that could be deemed identifiable. This is because, with some broadband connections, your IP address doesn't change (it is \"static\") and could be associated with your personal computer.\n\nAs well as recording the IP addresses of users, GESDA may also keep track of sites that users visited immediately prior to visiting GESDA's website and the search terms they used to find it. We keep track of the pages visited on GESDA's website, the amount of time spent on those pages and the types of searches done on them. Your searches remain confidential and anonymous. GESDA uses this information only for statistical purposes to find out which pages users find most useful and to improve the website.\nGESDA also captures and stores information that you transmit. This may include:\n\n  * Browser/Device type/version\n  * Operating system used\n  * Media Access Control (MAC) address\n  * Date and time of the server request\n  * Volume of data transferred\n\n#### External links behaviour\n\nSome of the links on GESDA's websites link to other sites created and maintained by other public- and/or private-sector organizations. GESDA provides these links solely for your information and convenience. When you transfer to an outside website, you are leaving the GESDA domain, and GESDA's information management policies no longer apply. GESDA encourages you to read the privacy statement of each external website that you visit before you provide any personal data.\n\n#### Cookies and web beacons\n\nCookies and web beacons are electronic placeholders that are placed on your device by websites to track your individual movements on that website over time. GESDA uses both session-based cookies (which last only for the duration of the user's session) and persistent cookies (which remain on your device and provide information about the session you are in and waits for the next time you use that site again).\n\nThese cookies and web beacons provide useful information to GESDA, enabling us to recognize repeat users, facilitate the user's access to and use of our sites, allows us to track usage behavior, and to balance the usage of our websites on all GESDA web servers.\nTracking cookies, third-party cookies, and other technologies such as web beacons may be used to process additional information, enable non-core functionalities on the GESDA website and enable third-party functions (such as a social media \"share\" link). We may also include web beacons and other similar technology in promotional email messages to determine whether the messages have been opened.\n\n#### Do Not Track (DNT)\n\nThe online advertising industry has self-regulatory initiatives designed to provide consumers a choice in the types of ads they may see online and to conveniently opt-out from online behavioral ads served by some or all of the companies participating in these programs. Our websites do not respond to DNT consumer browser settings.\n\n#### Responses to legal requests\n\nGESDA reserves the right to share your information to respond to duly authorized information requests of governmental authorities or where required by law.\n\n#### Your data rights\n\nGESDA complies with all applicable data privacy laws and regulations including, but not limited to, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Under these laws and regulations, you may have certain rights to your data. 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