Chemotactic bacteria as mobile biosensory devices

Navigation of motile bacteria in chemical gradients, so-called chemotaxis, is one of the most studied models of simple behaviour in biology. Due to its relative simplicity and excellent molecular description, the chemotaxis has been used to investigate fundamental quantitative concepts related to cell motion, sensing and signalling. In this talk, I will discuss perspective application of chemotactic bacteria as biosensory devices that can detect various environmental stimuli and deliver cargo at a specific location. Engineering bacteria to perform these tasks raises several fundamental challenges, such as modifying receptors to detect desired ligands and loading bacteria with cargo particles. I will show that addressing these challenges provides surprizing insights into the mechanisms of bacterial behaviour.