A synthetic biology approach to bio-chem-ICT: first moves towards chemical communication between synthetic and natural cells (* Rampioni, Mavelli and Damiano have contributed equally to this work)

In this article we present novel aspects of the impact that synthetic biology (SB) can express in a field traditionally based on computer science: information and communication technologies (ICTs), an area that we will consider taking into account also possible implications for artificial intelligence (AI) research. In the first part of this article we will shortly introduce some recent theoretical and experimental issues related to our approach in SB, discussing their relevance and potentiality in the field. Next, we define an original SB research program that aims at contributing to the development of bio-chem-ICTs and AI based on chemical communication between natural and synthetic cells. In particular we present (i) a mathematical model that allows us to simulate the main features of the system under construction; and (ii) preliminary wet- lab experiments showing the feasibility of our research program. Based on the bottom-up construction of synthetic cells, the traits of this novel approach and their connections with recent conceptual and technological trends are finally discussed.