A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms
Abstract
Living systems are more robust, diverse, complex, and supportive of human life than any technology yet created. However, our ability to create novel lifeforms is currently limited to varying existing organisms or bioengineering organoids in vitro. Here we show a scalable pipeline for creating functional novel lifeforms: AI methods automatically design diverse candidate lifeforms in silico to perform some desired function, and transferable designs are then created using a cell-based construction toolkit to realize living systems with the predicted behaviors. Although some steps in this pipeline still require manual intervention, complete automation in future would pave the way to designing and deploying unique, bespoke living systems for a wide range of functions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 13, 2020
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1910837117
Entities
People
- Douglas Blackiston
- Josh Bongard
- Michael Levin
- Sam Kriegman
Organizations
- Harvard University
- National Science Foundation
- Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
- Tufts University
- University of Vermont