Biological computing has great potential beyond mimicking standard computing.15 A cell’s components can be re-configured in response to external stimuli, for instance, and evolution allows populations of cells to adapt to changing environmental circumstances. They also function well in the presence of noise. There are multiple signal pathways within each cell, enabling concurrent, massively-parallel information processing,16 and the communication pathways that exist between biological cells allow for new forms of distributed computation.1718
This rich array of possibilities opens up the prospect of performing “whole cell biocomputations” or even using networks of cells to solve challenges as varied as environmental remediation, drug discovery, the production of novel materials and medical diagnosis.1920 That said, significant improvements in our ability to manipulate and interface with biological processes, and to understand the and measure the state of a cell, will be needed to make this a reality.
