DNA stores an awful lot of information, so why not computer data? That’s just what researchers at Davidson College and Missouri western State University had in mind when they designed an experiment to coax genetically altered bacteria into behaving like a computer. Their biological computer, composed of E. coli cells, solved a classical mathematical challenge known as the Burnt Pancake Problem: Sort a stack of objects (the “pancakes” in this experiment were DNA fragments) into proper order (golder side up) in the minimum number of flips. In the case of DNA, the “flipping” is actually sorting according to reversals. The more pancakes, the more complex the problem becomes. Still in its infancy, bacterial computing could have far-reaching implications for data storage, parallel computing, and genetic engineering. “The more little computers you have working on a problem, the greater the likehood that one is going to pick the right path that will take you to the right solution,” said Karmella Haynes, an adjunct professor of biology at Davidson, in an interview with MSNBC. Haynes’s team nicknamed the E. coli project E-Hop (continuing the pancake metaphor). With further research, this proof of concept could be put to even greater problem-solving challenges in the future.

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