Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner, Science and Engineering of Natural Systems Group (SENSe), School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS)
Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner at the School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) received worldwide media coverage when he revealed that he had created a robot controlled by living cells.
This probably came as no surprise to his primary school teachers in his German town of Schwäbisch Gmünd when he built his first computer at the age of 12.
'At the time when I built my first computer, my teachers did not even know what they were,' said Klaus-Peter.
He showed an aptitude for computing from an early age and once he had built one, went on to program it. In fact, Klaus-Peter was being offered jobs in computing ever before he studied the subject. This was as a result of him taking part in the Jugend Forscht, a fair for schoolchildren at which he won a national prize.
'This event got lots of media attention,' he said. 'From then on, I got job offers from companies.'
He capitalised on some of these offers and made some pocket money writing software for companies, and used the extra cash to backpack for six months through South-East Asia.
Klaus-Peter made a conscious decision not to go on to study computer science as he was keen to study a subject that he knew nothing about. He decided instead to study biochemistry at Tübingen University.
However, his love of computers refused to subside and he soon found himself wondering whether biomolecules could be used to build a computer. He thought this was a new idea but when he raised it with one of his professors, he found that there was a researcher who had been trying to do this for 20 years.
His interest took him to join Michael Conrad at Wayne State University in the USA, where he did a PhD in molecular computing.
After working there for a further year, he went to the University of Jena in former East Germany where he joined the Biosystems Analysis Group and continued researching molecular information processing for another year.
Having started down the route of using biomolecules to create new types of computing technology, Klaus-Peter was very keen to pursue this further. Around this time, he saw an advertisement for a position at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS)
‘I had never visited the UK before and had never been attracted to it,’ he said. ‘I assumed academia here would be very hierarchical, which it isn’t. There also is a real interest here in my type of work,’ he said.
Klaus-Peter became a lecturer in ECS’ Intelligence, Agents and Multimedia (IAM) group where he continued his research into using biomolecules to build computers.
He feels very strongly about the need for his approach. ‘Organisms are experts in information processing and they use materials in a much more sophisticated and efficient way than what we have in current computing technology.’ he says.
Klaus-Peter has since joined ECS’ newly-formed Science and Engineering of Natural Systems (SENSe) group and is looking at biological systems to find out how they use molecules to process information; he believes that much can be learned even from microorganisms.
‘The goal is to understand how biological information processing works,’ he said. ‘For example, if you watch a bird flying, you know that it is possible for something heavier than air to fly. Similarly, if we see what cells do, we know that marvelously complex nano-machinery is possible within the limits of physics. An understanding of these processes will enable us to develop new technology.’
His work in collaboration with scientists at Kobe University in Japan on using slime mould to control the movements of a six-legged robot is the first time that cells have been used in this way.
‘What is very attractive to us is the fact that cells can self-repair and self-restructure, all the things that you can’t achieve with conventional technology,’ he said.
Klaus-Peter received further recognition for his work through a є250,000 Microsoft Research European Fellowship grant to explore how molecules that are used as components in information processing can be joined up to create large molecular computing architectures.
He has also just been awarded a further sum of just under £800,000 by The Leverhulme Trust to undertake research into the exploitation of the physical characteristics of materials for computation.
'I believe that these projects could lead to a radical revolution in size and energy requirements for information processors,' he said. 'In fact, they could be small enough to work inside a cell and have the power to control very small robots.
I feel certain that molecular systems will be in common use within the next 50 to 100 years,’ Klaus-Peter added. ‘When my PhD advisor, Michael Conrad, thought about this in the ‘70s, it was considered by many as science fiction. Now over 30 years later, we can see the beginnings of its realisation. I know just how important it is for the future.’
