Bacterial self-organisation and computation

Bacterial colonies are able to detect and react to changes in their environment. The distributed self-organisation of large numbers of bacteria into well-defined spatial structures is a form of computation that is deserving of further attention. In this paper we review how one particular collective response – bacterial chemotaxis – has been modelled in silico to generate novel algorithms. We describe how such models may be further extended for the purposes of directed pattern-formation in bacteria, and conclude with a discussion of some fundamental questions that we aim to address with this approach.