Population-based microbial computing: a third wave of synthetic biology?

Synthetic biology is an emerging research field, in which engineering principles are applied to natural, living systems. A major goal of synthetic biology is to harness the inherent “biological nanotechnology” of living cells for the purposes of computation, production, or diagnosis. As the field evolves, it is gradually developing from a singlecell approach (akin to using standalone computers) to a distributed, population-based approach (akin to using networks of connected machines). We anticipate this eventually representing the “third wave” of synthetic biology (the first two waves being the emergence of modules and systems respectively, with the latter still yet to peak). In this paper we review the developments that are leading to this third wave, and describe some of the existing scientific and technological challenges.