Imperial College scientists have demonstrated digital circuits made from bacteria and DNA.
They are the most advanced biological logic gates ever created, claims the university.
"We have demonstrated that we can replicate these parts using bacteria and DNA, we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors, whose applications in information processing could be as important as their electronic equivalents," said Professor Richard Kitney from Imperial's Centre for Synthetic Biology.
The scientists constructed an AND gate from the bacteria called Escherichia coli (E.Coli), which is normally found in the lower intestine.
"The team altered the E.Coli with modified DNA, which reprogrammed it to perform the same switching on and off process as its electronic equivalent when stimulated by chemicals," said Imperial College.
In another experiment, the researchers created a NOT gate and combined it with the AND to produce a NAND.
The next stage of the research will see the team trying to develop more complex circuitry with multiple logic gates.
"One of challenges is finding a way to link biological logic gates together to enable complex processing to be carried out," said the university.
A paper: Engineering modular orthogonal genetic logic gates for robust digital-like synthetic biology, has been published in the Nature Communications journal.