After two years, the project is progressing according to plan. One of the most challenging and typically high-risk aspects of such projects—the assembly of the research team—went remarkably smoothly from the outset. The ECCO team comprises a highly coherent and interdisciplinary group of scientists, including computer scientists, engineers, molecular biologists, biochemists, and physicists. We have successfully fostered a collaborative environment where scientific questions are addressed collectively across the laboratory.
Our workflow exemplifies this collaboration: after in-depth discussions, the theoreticians design the experiments, the experimentalists build and test them, and the entire team evaluates the outcomes to refine and iterate further.
In WP1, we are focusing on understanding the evolution of DNA sequences (circuits) and the boundaries of their evolutionary design space. Complex circuits requiring intricate behaviors, such as oscillations or bistability, have highly specific design constraints related to evolutionary deviations, mutations, and other factors.
In WP2, we have adapted advanced molecular tools that are now fully operational in our laboratory. Applying these tools to living cells promises to yield groundbreaking approaches for using evolution in synthetic biology.
Additionally, we have initiated experiments in WP3—ahead of schedule—on laboratory-controlled bioremediation setups involving plants, pollutants, and multiple bacterial strains. Our bacterial computers have demonstrated the ability to restore balance in collapsing environments, at least in our simplified lab experiments. Over the remaining project duration, we aim to determine whether these living evolutionary computations can become a transformative technology, as we predict.
