Towards a Universal Biological-Cell Operating System (AUdACiOuS)

活细胞，例如细菌，是一台信息处理机器。它由一系列子系统组成，这些子系统通过感知外部刺激、评估自身的内部状态并通过复杂和相互关联的生物调节网络(BRN)基序网络做出决策，这些基序充当细菌神经网络。细菌的决策过程通常会产生各种输出，例如产生更多的细胞、趋化性、生物膜的形成等。最近的研究表明，细胞不仅对环境做出反应，而且甚至可以预测环境的变化。合成生物学(SB)的新兴学科认为细胞是一种机器，可以用类似于电子电路、飞机等的方式由部件制造。合成生物学寻求将细胞用于纳米计算和纳米制造目的。在这个领导团契研究计划期间，我的目标是使大肠杆菌更容易编程，从而更好地利用它们达到有用的目的。为了实现这一目标，我计划使用计算机科学为编写计算机程序而创造的工具、方法和资源，并找到使它们在微生物学实验室有用的方法。

A living cell, e.g. a bacterium, is an information-processing machine. It is composed of a series of sub-systems that work in concert by sensing external stimuli, assessing its own internal states and making decisions through a network of complex and interlinked biological regulatory networks (BRN) motifs that act as the bacterium neural network. A bacterium's decision making processes often result in a variety of outputs, e.g. the creation of more cells, chemotaxis, bio-film formation, etc. It was recently shown that cells not only react to their environment but that they can even predict environmental changes. The emerging discipline of Synthetic Biology (SB), considers the cell to be a machine that can be built -from parts- in a manner similar to, e.g., electronic circuits, airplanes, etc. SB has sought to co-opt cells for nano-computation and nano-manufacturing purposes. During this leadership fellowship programme of research I will aim at making E.coli bacteria much more easily to program and hence harness for useful purposes. In order to achieve this, I plan to use the tools, methodologies and resources that computer science created for writing computer programs and find ways of making them useful in the microbiology laboratory.