Monday, July 1, 2002		Feature

Using bacteria for data
Radhakrishna Rao

In a major breakthrough, researchers have edged close to manipulate tiny bacteria to sub serve drug research by partly replacing living cells. As envisaged now, the so-called cyber cell project will have a "profound influence on the way we do life sciences research in the future," points out Michael Ellison, director of the Institute for Bio-Molecular Design at Edmonton. In the ultimate analysis, the project plans to create a modified version of the microscopic bacterial strain of E. Coli, dubbed the workhorse of the genetic engineering that could be used to deliver drugs to the diseased sites in the human body to affect faster and effective cure.

Another goal of researchers working on the potentials of bacteria is to exploit its capability to store data. For more than two decades now, Russians, Americans and Japanese have been quite active in developing the so-called biochips using bacterial protein. The high data storage capability of biochips makes it an ideal candidate for developing a high performance computing system.

As it is, for millions of years now, the primitive bacterial strains have been in the business of protein synthesis-much the same way as the modern computer does its job of information processing and data analysis. The quest of researchers working on the biological computers is to use the bacterial protein - in conjunction with the transistors and printed circuit boards - as a substitute for the seemingly omnipotent silicon chip.

Researchers at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are also into the business of developing biochips that could vastly enhance the storage capacity of a computer. As researchers point out, more memory is needed because though the speed of processing has increased over a 1000 times in the last one decade, the storage capacity has gone up just by the order 10.

Bacterial protein mixed with a polymer constitutes the mainstay of the biochip. The tough task is, however, mixing of bacterial protein with polymer under the zero gravity conditions. As it is, the elements fused under zero gravity conditions yield a product bristling with "super purity". Dubbed "bacteriohodopsin", the protein changes the properties under the influence of laser beams of different colours. This makes it an ideal candidate for an optical memory that depends on the light to read and write. The protein, when irradiated by a green and red laser beams transforms itself from its natural state to another stable state. These two states serve as the biological equivalent of 0 and 1 - to keys write data on the chip.

Interestingly, biochips are also being used to decode the genetic structure of living organisms thousands times faster than the existing technology. In a related development, IBM's research project in India is working on developing a new generation gene prediction algorithm.

A spokesperson of IBM India point out that "to be able to use gene sequence/information meaningfully, scientists need to identify the gene and functions they serve."

On another front, IBM India is also developing a biochip information system that aid researchers in narrowing down potential leads in genetic research and accelerate the development of new therapeutics. As pointed out by a spokesperson of IBM India, "Solutions such as these can help the biologists focus on the research by expediting access to analysis of prior relevant research data that is stored in many difficult locations, each employing a different format."