The new field of evolvable hardware seeks to extend natural evolution to the domain of complex hardware. Information processing systems based on molecular biology are the basic candidates for such an approach, since all special components can be constructed together. Extension of these principles to microfluidic and photonic systems allows an evolvable interface between the electronic and biomolecular worlds to be established.
Biochemical systems offer possibilities to coevolve the construction system itself.
Such systems may also lead to new electronic architectures in which simple machines build more complex ones. Evolvable biomolecular hardware Molecular biology has progressed to the point where sequence programmable and evolvable molecular systems have been constructed as cell-free chemical systems using biomolecules such as DNA and proteins. As these in vitro systems increase in sophisti-cation, the goal of attaining general programmable molecular construction systems appears tangible. The first such construction systems have been established which extend evolution from the simple optimisation of individual molecules, to cooperating mol-ecular networks. Evolvablemicroreactor hardware Artificial environments for the proliferation and manipulation of replicating molecules have been created in micro-structured flowreactors using silicon and glass wafers.