Bioengineers Introduce 'Bi-Fi' -- The Biological 'Internet'

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A doctoral candidate and an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University have altered a virus, M13, to create what may be referred to as "Bi-fi", or a biological internet. They have harnessed M13's “non-lethality and its ability to package and broadcast arbitrary DNA strands" and they can control what messages are being sent from cell to cell. This is a big breakthrough, because it allows the message and messenger function to be separated. Theoretically, the only limitation in what can be transmitted is what can be encoded for in DNA.

This article is interesting to me because it could potentially have an important impact on the development of artificial organs, which is a field of research that I want to be involved in. The ability to transmit signals using M13 can help with the creation of complex 3 dimensional structures. While the use of M13 to transmit messages from cell to cell is still very new, the potential benefits seem promising.