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Comment by indescions_2018 | Hacker News Reader

indescions_2018

How do you get information out of a living cell without destroying it?

Right now observing neuron function within our brains is limited to tools such as magnetic resonance imaging. But molecular recorders, such as the Crispr Camera system demonstrated here. Provide a mechanism for cells to log their own history. With storage space extensible to a petri-sized population of bacteria totalling billions of gigabytes!

I think the vision is more than data storage however. Synthetic biological constructs typically involve complex and precise steps. By encoding the recipe in biology. It ushers in the path for automating the laboratory workflow.

Movie Replayed From Living Cells' DNA Debuts "Molecular Recorder"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK3dcjBaJyo

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> How do you get information out of a living cell without destroying it?

Using the existing systems of sensing/data-exfiltration already used by life. Fireflies produce light, jellyfish glow, plants curl up in darkness, fungi bud, flowers blossom, you blush, you sweat, you get hungry, etc.

Couple those outputs to a similar biological input: sensing DNA damage, presence of particular DNA, small molecules, proteins, sugars, etc., sensing of temperature, magnetic field, particular atom/ion, etc.

Couple them: if cold -> glow; if Iron -> blossom, if low blood sugar -> emit light.

The recent "Chimeric Antigen Receptor" approved by the FDA is exactly one such designed way to act on information within a cell; if cancer-like -> kill cell.

These CRISPR tools are similar; if presence of particular DNA -> change DNA, or cut DNA, or activate response.

There is an inherent poetic quality to the inner workings of nature and living beings. Certainly synthetic biology should reflect that ;)

I also think you've hit upon something fundamental. The use of light and photons as the lowest common denominator in biochemical function. Not just in the optogenetic sense. But as the basic building block in biophysics.

And electrons. Amplify an energy difference/transfer to a shift in protein conformation, to the cellular-scale presence/absence of noticable molecules, to actions of cells that are collectively organized to respond, to tissues, to organisms.

Optigenetic tools are just the most clear abstractions from photon->gene, but the same principles apply to thermo-, mechano-, chemo-, etc-, protien sensors (i.e. all of them).

They're all an amplification cascade from photons and electrons upwards. It is elegant in how general that description is (and how it suggests an approach to synthetic designs).

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