Dynamical Task Switching in Cellular Computers

Abstract

We present a scheme for implementing a version of task switching in engineered bacteria, based on the manipulation of plasmid copy numbers. Our method allows for the embedding of multiple computations in a cellular population, whilst minimising resource usage inefficiency. We describe the results of computational simulations of our model, and discuss the potential for future work in this area.

Keywords

• synthetic biology
• cellular computing
• plasmids