developed to use bacteria to behave as an LCD screen. In July 2017, separate experiments with E. coli published on Nature showed the potential of using living cells for computing tasks and storing information. A team formed with collaborators of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering developed a biological computer inside E. coli that responded to a dozen inputs. The team called the computer "ribocomputer", as it was composed of ribonucleic acid. Meanwhile, Harvard researchers probed that is possible to store information in bacteria after successfully archiving images and movies in the DNA of living E. coli cells. In 2021, a team led by biophysicist Sangram Bagh realized a study with E. coli to solve 2 × 2 maze problems to probe the principle for distributed computing among cells. History In 1885, the German-Austrian pediatrician Theodor Escherich discovered this organism in the feces of healthy individuals. He called it Bacterium coli commune because it is found in the colon. Early classifications of prokaryotes placed these in a handful of genera based on their shape and motility (at that time Ernst Haeckel's classification of bacteria in the kingdom Monera was in place). Bacterium coli was the type species of the now invalid genus Bacterium when it was revealed that the former type species ("Bacterium triloculare") was missing. Following a revision of Bacterium, it was reclassified as Bacillus coli by Migula in 1895 and later reclassified in the newly created genus Escherichia, named after its original discoverer, by Aldo Castellani and Albert John Chalmers. In 1996, the world's worst to date outbreak of E. coli food poisoning occurred in Wishaw, Scotland, killing 21 people. This death toll was exceeded in 2011, when the 2011 Germany E. coli O104:H4 outbreak, linked to organic fenugreek sprouts, killed 53 people. Uses E. coli has several practical uses besides its use as a vector for genetic experiments and processes. For example, E. coli can be used to generate synthetic propane and recombinant human growth hormone. See also Bacteriological water analysis BolA-like protein family Carbon monoxide-releasing molecules Contamination control Dam dcm strain Eijkman test Fecal coliform International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria List of strains of Escherichia coli Mannan oligosaccharide-based nutritional supplements Overflow metabolism T4 rII system References Databases and external links EcoCyc – literature-based curation of the entire genome, and of transcriptional regulation, transporters, and metabolic pathways