NEUNEU · Artificial Wet Neuronal Networks from\nCompartmentalised Excitable Chemical Media

This research programme will be concerned with the development ofmass-producible chemical information processing components and theirinterconnection into functional architectures. The project has threecomplementary objectives. The first is to engineer lipid-coated waterdroplets, inspired by biological cells, containing an excitable chemicalmedium and to connect the droplets into networks in which they cancommunicate through chemical signals. The second objective is to designarchitectures based on the droplets and to demonstrate purposefulinformation processing in droplet architectures. The third objective is toexplore and establish the potential and the limitations of dropletarchitectures, both from a theoretical perspective and with laboratoryprototypes. We expect that this collaboration among computer-scientists,bio-physicists, chemical-physicists, biochemists, chemical-biologists, andelectrical engineers will develop a flexible and efficient substrate formolecular information technology.