MIT turns bacteria into living transistors

MIT researchers have created bacterial “transistors” that can be wired together into living circuits capable of performing calculations and directing chemical signals. One day, these biological computers could coat plant roots or leaves, detecting environmental threats and automatically triggering defenses. MIT turns bacteria into living transistors.

MIT turns bacteria into living transistors Science News from research organizations MIT turns bacteria into living transistors MIT scientists have turned bacteria into living transistors, opening the door to plants with built-in biological computers that can sense and respond to their environment. In conventional electronics, transistors act as switches that control whether electrical current can pass through a circuit. In the MIT system, engineered bacterial cells perform a similar role by regulating the movement of small signaling molecules.

Those molecules then carry information to other components in the biological circuit. The researchers created two types of bacterial transistors and three additional bacterial strains that act as relays between them. Together, these five strains provide a modular set of components that can be arranged to build nearly any kind of circuit.

In the new study, the team demonstrated circuits capable of adding two or three inputs and directing a single input toward a selected destination.