Marc D. Riedel Associate Professor, ECE University of Minnesota EE 5393: Circuits, Computation and Biology ORAND

Instructor Prof. Marc Riedel tel.: (612) office: EE/CSi office hours: Th. 1:00 – 3:00pm

Teaching Assistants Joshua Krist office: Keller Hall office hours: after every graded homework is returned

EE5393: Circuits, Computation, and Biology Lecture: Wed. & Friday, 2:30–3:45pm Location: Keller Hall Prereqs: none Textbooks:none Website:

Grading 20% Quizzes: 11 quizzes (best 10 of 11 scores) 80% Homeworks: 5 homeworks (best 4 of 5 scores)

“ A person's mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them.” – Francis Crick, 1982 Astonishing Hypothesis “T hat the astonishing hypothesis is astonishing.” – Christophe Koch, 1995 The Astonishing Part:

Domains of Expertise Vision Language Abstract Reasoning Farming Human Circuit Number Crunching Mining Data Iterative Calculations

Circuits & Computers as a Window into our Linguistic Brains Circuit Brain Conceives of circuits and computation by “applying” language. Lousy at all the tasks that the brain that designed it is good at (including language). ?

Language as a Window into the way the Brain Works Steven Pinker, Harvard

“ Minnesota Farmer ” Most of the cells in his body are not his own! Most of the cells in his body are not even human! Most of the DNA in his body is alien! Who is this guy?

“ Minnesota Farmer ” 100 trillion bacterial cells of at least 500 different types inhabit his body. Who is this guy? He’s a human-bacteria hybrid: vs. only 1 trillion human cells of 210 different types. [like all of us]

“ Minnesota Farmer ” Who is this guy?What’s in his gut? 100 trillion bacterial cells of at least 500 different types inhabit his body. He’s a human-bacteria hybrid: vs. only 1 trillion human cells of 210 different types. [like all of us]

About 3 pounds of bacteria! What’s in his gut? “E. coli, a self-replicating object only a thousandth of a millimeter in size, can swim 35 diameters a second, taste simple chemicals in its environment, and decide whether life is getting better or worse.” – Howard C. Berg flagellum

Bacterial Motor

Electron Microscopic Image

“Stimulus, response! Stimulus response! Don’t you ever think!” We should put these critters to work…

Artificial Life US Patent (pending): “The present invention relates to a minimal set of protein-coding genes which provides the information required for replication of a free-living organism in a rich bacterial culture medium.” – J. Craig Venter Institute Going from reading genetic codes to writing them.

Artificial Life Going from reading genetic codes to writing them. Moderator: “Some people have accused you of playing God.” J. Craig Venter: “Oh no, we’re not playing.