BioCentury
ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Bacterial Logic

Boolean bactosensors for biomarker detection

July 30, 2015 7:00 AM UTC

Scientists from the Sys2Diag group have introduced Boolean logic to their bactosensor technology and are hoping the tool will further their goal of allowing molecular diagnostic tests to be performed at home or in remote locations. Sys2Diag is a public-private collaboration between the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Alcen Group diagnostics subsidiary Alcediag. "The goal is to avoid sending samples to the laboratory for simple measurements," Sys2Diag director Franck Molina told BioCentury.

Molina and his team engineered bacteria, dubbed "bactosensors," that make Boolean logic computations to determine whether a specific compound or combination of compounds is present in human samples. A Boolean system is one that produces an output - in this case, expression of a fluorescent protein - if its inputs have satisfied a set of pre-determined true/false conditions. ...