With the help of a mathematical model, a scientist from Virginia Institute of Technology has demonstrated that bacteria have the ability to control the behaviour on an inanimate device like robot.

Prof. Warren Ruder said, “Basically we were trying to find out from the mathematical model if we could build a living microbiome on a nonliving host and control the host through the microbiome”. After carrying the research, they came to know that robots may be able to work with a bacterial brain.

Now, Ruder is working on to develop real-world robots that will use miniature fluorescent microscopes to read bacterial gene expression levels in E.coli. Ruder will engineer bacteria and the robots will in turn respond to them.

The project is quite important as it can implications in fields including ecology, biology, and robotics. To give few examples, bacteria-robot model systems could pave way for robot studies that explore the link between soil bacteria and livestock.

In healthcare sector, it can be used to understand the role of bacteria in the controlling gut physiology and it further can pave way for bacteria-based prescriptions for the treatment of mental and physical illnesses.

The idea of research came from real-world experiments only in which bacteria were used to know more about the mating behaviour of fruit flies. In the mathematical experiment, the bacteria showed their genetic circuitry by turning green or red as per what they eat.