EFRI BEGIN OI: Reservoid Computer - Intelligent and Evolving Mechano-Reservoir Computing with Living Spheroids on Fibers

Biological computing seeks to harness the complex, rapid, and energy-efficient performance of living systems. Most biocomputing strategies use neurons. They are the core processors in the human brain, and they can be easily interfaced electrically. Electrical signaling is not the only means of communicating with living systems. This project will take advantage of the responsiveness of pericytes to mechanical stresses to construct a computing system. Pericytes wrap around capillaries and respond to neural signals to contract and relax, altering blood flow. Clusters of these cells, referred to as spheroids, will be placed on a fiber network. Mechanical forces will be applied to the fibers, and the response of the spheroids will be monitored and modeled. The mapping of inputs to outputs can ultimately be applied to problems of speech and image recognition. The project will also address ethical issues surrounding the use of biological material to perform computations. Efforts will be made to identify what unit of organization in this system (cells, spheroids, networks of spheroids) exhibits computational ability, and whether that unit exhibits a level of awareness that might be considered consciousness. These determinations will guide discussions and action regarding the care and use of these systems. The reservoid platform design draws inspiration from two biological entities in nature. First, the extracellular matrix (ECM), a fibrous environment that cells produce and use to organize themselves into three-dimensional (3D) tissue. Second, 3-D cell clusters (spheroids), which are powerful emerging tools for modeling and studying biology and developing bioengineered systems. The project will create a computing paradigm of reservoids using biological rules established by cell-cell, spheroid-spheroid, and spheroid-fiber interactions on ECM fibrous networks of varying fiber diameters and architectures. The envisioned reservoids will dynamically evolve to enhance performance, efficiency, and scalability with changing environmental conditions and computing demands. The team will identify and apply spheroid-merger biological rules to generate a numerical emulator that quickly iterates reservoid designs and optimizes its computing performance over time. Systematic integration of philosophical and ethical studies with early-stage bio-computing research will unveil how biological components in a reservoid represent practical, moral, and ethical considerations and obtain a new understanding of the potential consequences from the widespread deployment and use(s) of reservoids. This project is jointly funded by the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Program (BEGIN OI) and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.