PIF2024 - Multicellular computing with engineered bacterial communities (PID2023-152470NB-I00)

By using bacterial conjugation as a messaging protocol, MULTI-SYNBIO aims to implement synthetic multicellular consortia with unprecedented computing capabilities. In contrast to quorum sensing (QS), the most-used messaging protocol for connecting cells within the consortia, conjugation will be used to send/receive more than mere 0/1 binary signals. Indeed, entire genetic circuits encoded in plasmid vectors will travel between cells and throughout the population. The project will engineer control strategies for such circuit mobility and demonstrate the potential for the application of resulting synthetic consortia: from population-based logic circuits and feedback loops to general-purpose biocomputers with environmental signals. Towards the successful implementation of the first wave (of many!) of conjugation-based multicellular computers.