Experimenting the Unexperimentable with Digital Organisms

Citation: Maitra, A, Lim, JJH, Ho, CJY, Tang, AY, Teo, W, Alejado, ELC, Ling, MHT. 2024. Experimenting the Unexperimentable with Digital Organisms. To appear in Encyclopedia of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, 2nd edition.

Link to [Abstract]

Digital organisms (DOs) are computer programs with digital genetics that possess similarities to biological life-forms, which can be valuable tools in confirming evolutionary hypotheses and are considered model organisms and instances of evolution rather than computational simulations of evolution. Hence, DOs can be an avenue to study areas that cannot be studied in wet laboratory settings due to various reasons; for example, the non-feasibility of experimental setup (such as, origins of multicellularity from unicellularity, or the emergence of specialized cells), and potential risks or ethical issues (such as, gain-of-function in pathogens and its effects on population, or effects of extinction events). In this article, we describe the origins of DOs, and its use in biology to examine experimentally impossible or ethically challenging areas. The advantages and disadvantages of using DOs, as well as the relevance of DO studies on biological life will also be discussed.