- Researchers at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, have genetically engineered bacteria to perform computational tasks like identifying prime numbers and vowels.
- This innovation combines synthetic biology and computational techniques to create bacterial computers with artificial neural network-like behaviour.
- Scientists introduced genetic circuits into Escherichia coli bacteria.
- Circuits were activated using chemical inducers, creating “bactoneurons”.
- These bactoneurons collectively mimic artificial neural networks (ANN), perform tasks like identifying prime numbers, vowels, perfect powers, and solving optimization problems.
- Responses are coded in binary using fluorescent proteins like red, green, blue, orange.
Dig Deeper: Read about Artificial Neural Networks.
