Does synthetic biology mimic electronics?

Nature has always been a source of knowledge and discovery. This is true, particularly in synthetic biology, where the discovery of novel genes among living beings existing in nature permits to modify in a spectacular way the metabolism of living beings.
Today, this process goes further thanks to the molecular engineering, which allows us to design new proteins, and create new genes that did not exist before in nature.
With iGEM Toulouse 2013 project, the goal is to make digital additions by bacteria. The numerical calculation is a totally abstract behavior and we may ask why to change the living in order to make it looks like a human ideal of perfection: electronics?


Electronics, this science that has only a century, has enabled men to develop all the current technology. It is now an integral part of our lives.
It is therefore natural to try to apply the basis of the science, which brought us so much progress, in the new science of synthetic biology.
In fact, we know for example that a human brain can calculate 10 ^ 18 bits / sec. The potential computing power of a biological computer seems huge. Synthetic biology could be at the origin of a new scientific revolution, by allowing the construction and use of biological computers, directly inspired by electronics.


But if synthetic biology can create a computer, inspired by electronics, we must not forget that no electronic computer can, today, exceed the computing power of a human brain. Biology seems superior to electronics and if we try to learn from electronics to create a biological computer, we may be limited by the model and never reach the potential promised by synthetic biology.
The calculation, inducted in the living, should then be based on what works in nature, and therefore the human brain, in order to not become the shameful little brother of electronics.


Finally, it should be noted that although in this project, we was strongly inspired by computing, the actual means used to implement the calculation are very different from those used in electronics.
Because the biological computer just beginning to take shape in our minds, it is important to explore from it all possibilities. The Toulouse iGEM 2013 project does not want just to copy the electronics to put it in the living beings, it wants to show that human and abstract thinking like calculation can be expressed via bacteria, and that it can form network and communicate together to accomplish a complex task.

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