CSK Realization for MC via Spatially Distributed Multicellular Consortia

The design and engineering of molecular communication (MC) components capable of processing chemical concentration signals is the key to unleashing the potential of MC for interdisciplinary applications. By controlling the signaling pathway and molecule exchange between cell devices, synthetic biology provides the MC community with tools and techniques to achieve various signal processing functions. In this paper, we propose a design framework to realize any order concentration shift keying (CSK) systems based on simple and reusable single-input single-output cells. The design framework also exploits the distributed multicellular consortia with spatial segregation, which has advantages in system scalability, low genetic manipulation, and signal orthogonality. We also create a small library of reusable engineered cells and apply them to implement binary CSK (BCSK) and quadruple CSK (QCSK) systems to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed design framework. Importantly, we establish a mathematical framework to theoretically characterize our proposed distributed multicellular systems. Specially, we divide a system into fundamental building blocks, from which we derive the impulse response of each block and the cascade of the impulse responses leads to the end-to-end response of the system. Simulation results obtained from the agent-based simulator BSim not only validate our CSK design framework but also demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed mathematical analysis.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figure

A survey of molecular communication in cell biology : establishing a new hierarchy for interdisciplinary applications

Molecular communication (MC) engineering is inspired by the use of chemical signals as information carriers in cell biology. The biological nature of chemical signaling makes MC a promising methodology for interdisciplinary applications requiring communication between cells and other microscale devices. However, since the life sciences and communications engineering fields have distinct approaches to formulating and solving research problems, the mismatch between them can hinder the translation of research results and impede the development and implementation of interdisciplinary solutions. To bridge this gap, this survey proposes a novel communication hierarchy for MC signaling in cell biology and maps phenomena, contributions, and problems to the hierarchy. The hierarchy includes: 1) the physical propagation of cell signaling at the Physical Signal Propagation level; 2) the generation, reception, and biochemical pathways of molecular signals at the Physical and Chemical Signal Interaction level; 3) the quantification of physical signals, including macroscale observation and control methods, and conversion of signals to information at the Signal-Data Interface level; 4) the interpretation of information in cell signals and the realization of synthetic systems to store, process, and communicate molecular signals at the Local Data Abstraction level; and 5) applications relying on communication with MC signals at the Application level. To further demonstrate the proposed hierarchy, it is applied to case studies on quorum sensing, neuronal signaling, and communication via DNA. Finally, several open problems are identified for each level and the integration of multiple levels. The proposed hierarchy provides language for communication engineers to study and interface with biological systems, and also helps biologists to understand how communications engineering concepts can be exploited to interpret, control, and manipulate signaling in cell biology

A comprehensive survey on hybrid communication in context of molecular communication and terahertz communication for body-centric nanonetworks

With the huge advancement of nanotechnology over the past years, the devices are shrinking into micro-scale, even nano-scale. Additionally, the Internet of nano-things (IoNTs) are generally regarded as the ultimate formation of the current sensor networks and the development of nanonetworks would be of great help to its fulfilment, which would be ubiquitous with numerous applications in all domains of life. However, the communication between the devices in such nanonetworks is still an open problem. Body-centric nanonetworks are believed to play an essential role in the practical application of IoNTs. BCNNs are also considered as domain specific like wireless sensor networks and always deployed on purpose to support a particular application. In these networks, electromagnetic and molecular communications are widely considered as two main promising paradigms and both follow their own development process. In this survey, the recent developments of these two paradigms are first illustrated in the aspects of applications, network structures, modulation techniques, coding techniques and security to then investigate the potential of hybrid communication paradigms. Meanwhile, the enabling technologies have been presented to apprehend the state-of-art with the discussion on the possibility of the hybrid technologies. Additionally, the inter-connectivity of electromagnetic and molecular body-centric nanonetworks is discussed. Afterwards, the related security issues of the proposed networks are discussed. Finally, the challenges and open research directions are presented