Genetically engineering e. coli bacteria to do cool things is the latest craze in the science world. The latest, sci-fiesque case in point: Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign made of e. coli bacteria that will glow based on triggered reactions, completely in unison.
Bacteria communicate by a method known as quorum sensing, which means that they actually pass molecules between them to coordinate and trigger behavior. With knowledge of how to manipulate those triggers, the bacteria can be made to react in predictable ways. In this case, some genetic engineering caused that reaction to be a fluorescent glow by adding a particular protein to the bacteria’s biological clock. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment, but quorum sensing isn’t a large or fast enough process to work quickly on millions of bacteria together, so microfluidic chips (below right) were designed to harness the localized trigger and broadcast it to the plethora of shared colonies existing on the chip
Genetically engineering e. coli bacteria to do cool things is the latest craze in the science world. The latest, sci-fiesque case in point: Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign made of e. coli bacteria that will glow based on triggered reactions, completely in unison.
Bacteria communicate by a method known as quorum sensing, which means that they actually pass molecules between them to coordinate and trigger behavior. With knowledge of how to manipulate those triggers, the bacteria can be made to react in predictable ways. In this case, some genetic engineering caused that reaction to be a fluorescent glow by adding a particular protein to the bacteria’s biological clock. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment, but quorum sensing isn’t a large or fast enough process to work quickly on millions of bacteria together, so microfluidic chips (below right) were designed to harness the localized trigger and broadcast it to the plethora of shared colonies existing on the chip
Genetically engineering e. coli bacteria to do cool things is the latest craze in the science world. The latest, sci-fiesque case in point: Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign made of e. coli bacteria that will glow based on triggered reactions, completely in unison.
Bacteria communicate by a method known as quorum sensing, which means that they actually pass molecules between them to coordinate and trigger behavior. With knowledge of how to manipulate those triggers, the bacteria can be made to react in predictable ways. In this case, some genetic engineering caused that reaction to be a fluorescent glow by adding a particular protein to the bacteria’s biological clock. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment, but quorum sensing isn’t a large or fast enough process to work quickly on millions of bacteria together, so microfluidic chips (below right) were designed to harness the localized trigger and broadcast it to the plethora of shared colonies existing on the chip
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