Observatorio de I+D+i UPM

The goal of PLASWIRE project is to demonstrate (empirically, theoretically, and computationally) that conjugation is a modular, robust and local cell-cell communication mechanism that allows the engineering of scalable, programmable, versatile, and distributed living plasmid technology with potential applications in: Computer science and synthetic biology, Biomedicine, nanobiotechnology and biochemical engineering.
The main scientific and technological achievements of the project will be:

A. The engineering of the following multicellular plasmid based genetic systems:

1. Sentinel plasmids that will serve as new programmable antibiotics able to detect dangerous combinations of plasmids.
2. The largest multicellular genetic circuits engineered so far:
2.1 A multi-layered AND gate circuit with 5 inputs
2.2 AND-OR and OR-AND Boolean logic gates circuits with up to 6 inputs
3. A programmable sensor of 2 plasmids (if-then-else).
4. A multicellular Programmable Logic Array (PLA) of 2 inputs.
5. “Clause plasmids” able to solve autonomously in linear time the SAT problem in bacterial populations

B. The design and simulation of other multicellular plasmid based circuits: Edge-detector multicellular plasmid circuits, smart task scheduler plasmids, foreman plasmids, and predator-prey multicellular circuits.
C. Theoretical analysis of the computational power of distributed communication plasmid protocols and
D. The development of a software conjugative module to the CellModeller and BactoSIM simulators.