[BBF Standards] Input/output

[Bryan Bishop]

I was talking with a Slashdot user yesterday who reminded me one of the 
important points that I have been missing when it comes to biobricks, 
namely the goal of data i/o, and so I have briefly outlined an idea for 
a standard and am hoping the list can add a few thoughts to this:

Radioprotein:
* Protein antenna
* For starters - chemical substrate to activate enzyme.
** Later: integral protein / receptor site. Ex: catch 1% of dopamine.
* Evolutionary experiments with relevant selector?
** those colonies which are able to transmit are triangulated are given 
food by a mechanical arm in a few tanks? 
A first project: radio-controlled bacterial movement.

The problem is that there is never going to be just _one_ radioprotien 
and there's no way that we are going to be hacking together a single 
bit transmission system. Instead, we are going to be getting tons of 
bits and bytes out of bacterial colonies at the same time, in parallel, 
and need a way to record this information. Unfortunately, from what 
little I know of protein expression, this seems to mean that it will 
always involve molecular gradients for comm, and we are not all that 
good at working with molecular gradients. Perhaps we have to study the 
genetics of the cellular messenging systems? I hope it's a template.

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/