Bachelet, an expert in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics who joined the BINA faculty after completing post-doctoral research at both Harvard and MIT, has long been interested in “swarm behavior” – the de-centralized dynamic in which relatively simple organisms, capable of a limited repertoire of actions, cooperate to produce results that could not have been achieved by one individual. Based on this concept, Bachelet has designed an injectable “swarm” of nano-robots that interact, and respond to environmental cues by either triggering or inhibiting specific outcomes. 

Bachelet’s work represents a significant step toward the implementation of biological computing in living organisms.