Science

MIT researchers engineer bacterial circuits to perform biological computing

Engineered strains of bacteria arranged on agar plates can perform logic operations and arithmetic using chemical signals.

Updated Sep 4, 2026 · 13:19 UTC1 reports

The short version

MIT bioengineers have developed five modular strains of Pantoea agglomerans that act as transistors and relays to compute using chemical signals.
By spacing colonies on agar plates, researchers built multi-cellular circuits capable of operations including addition and signal routing.
Calculations take roughly eight hours per operation, but researchers propose deploying the systems in agriculture to detect plant stresses and automate protective responses.

MIT scientists engineered five strains of the bacterium Pantoea agglomerans to act as modular biological transistors and relays.[ScienceDaily]
The bacterial colonies are printed onto agar plates spaced approximately 5 millimeters apart to direct the flow of chemical signaling molecules between components.[ScienceDaily]
The largest demonstrated circuit connected 24 bacterial colonies to perform addition on two inputs.[ScienceDaily]
Each biological computation requires approximately eight hours to complete.[ScienceDaily]
The study was published in Nature Chemical Biology and received funding in part from DARPA and IARPA.[ScienceDaily]

Whether these modular bacterial circuits can function reliably outside laboratory agar plates, such as directly on plant leaves or roots in real-world agricultural environments, remains unproven.[ScienceDaily]

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