Bioluminescent Bioreporter Integrated Circuits (bbics):

INTRODUCTION The bioluminescent bioreporter integrated circuit represents a new advance in the development of whole-cell biosensors. These devices consist of a genetically engineered bioreporter organism interfaced with an integrated circuit (Fig. 1). The bioreporter is engineered to luminesce when a targeted substance is encountered, while the circuit is designed to detect the luminescence, process the signal, and communicate the results. The chief advantage of this approach is that the entire sensor, including all signal-processing and communication functions, can be produced as a single-chip, low-power, rugged, inexpensive device. We envision these devices being used in a variety of distributed sensing and environmental control systems. Future work will focus on using more information processing capabilities of the cells to create highly functional sensing/computing/actuating devices.