One of the challenges in the next ten years in the field of synthetic biology will be to provide living organisms with the capacity to interpret and take decisions according to previously determined patterns.

A study by two teams of researchers at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (CEXS) at UPF has shown that it is possible to create biological systems with decision-making ability according to predefined criteria by using multiple combinations of cells modified by genetic engineering.

This type of experimental approach means that much more complex systems can be generated than ever before, which suggests that the future development of this application should enable the design and use of artificial biosystems with the decision-making capacity in many different areas.

This study, which was published on 8 December in the digital version of the journal Nature , is a significant breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology, and took place thanks to the close cooperation between a theoretical biology group, the Complex Systems Laboratory, headed by Ricard Solé, and an experimental biology group, the Cell Signaling Unit, led by Francesc Posas.

Synthetic biologists had previously attempted to design living computers using basic concepts of electronics. This approach led to the problem of how to connect the various parts of the circuits. In electronics, this connection is achieved using a cable that transfers electricity between elements separated in space, but this cannot be replicated in a living system, and one of the objectives of synthetic biology, the combination of various parts to obtain sophisticated circuits, had previously failed as a design principle.

This study has solved the problem using a new theory which enables sophisticated circuits to be constructed using living cells as the basic building blocks with very few connections. As a result, setting aside the design by electronic engineers, a series of cells able to detect and interpret signals has been created, which can be combined on a flexible basis. The system allows the various cells to be reused to create new circuits as if they were pieces of a Lego set.

It is therefore a system which can create many different circuits with a minimal number of existing cells and furthermore, once a circuit has been established it can be programmed simply by adding a specific compound to the culture medium in which it is placed. As a result, this study shows that it is possible to implement a biological system with large computing capaicty using leving organisms.

The potential for this research is vast, as for the first time, it is now possible to design systems that respond "intelligently" to complex situations by means of cellular engineering.

For example, this capacity could be applied to the detection of molecules and their subsequent directed degradation, to interaction with specific target cells and their control, or to the design of cellular populations with the ability to act as artificial tissues.

For further reference, see:

Sergi Regot, Javier Macia, Núria Conde, Kentaro Furukawa, Jimmy Kjellén, Tom Peeters, Stefan Hohmann, Eulàlia de Nadal, Francesc Posas and Ricard Solé. " Distributed Biological Computation with Multicellular Engineered Networks". Nature doi:10.1038/nature09679. 8 December 2010.

Group Members:

Researchers: Javier Macia, Tom Peteers and Eulàlia de Nadal Macià, (co-director of the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences' Cell Signaling Unit).
Doctoral students: Sergi Regot and Núria Conde, who are both graduate researchers in Human Biology from the UPF.

Both groups receive financing from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the EU (the 6th and 7th Framework Programme), the Marcelino Botín Foundation and the Government of Catalonia's ICREA programme.