GM plants to form basis of hazardous substance sensors

The Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) programme, launched by DARPA, aims to develop "robust, plant-based sensors that are self-sustaining in their environment and can be remotely monitored using existing hardware". This is needed, the agency explains, because threats are more distributed than they had been in previous decades and monitoring them has become too complex for the electronic and mechanical sensors that the defence sector conventionally uses.

“Plants are highly attuned to their environments and naturally manifest physiological responses to basic stimuli such as light and temperature, but also in some cases to touch, chemicals, pests, and pathogens," said programme manager Blake Bextine, a biologist specialising in insects who works in DARPA's biological technologies office.

Bextine’s vision for APT is to modify these natural sensing and response mechanisms so the plants respond to selected chemicals, pathogens, radiation and even electromagnetic signals in such a way that the plants’ ability to thrive in the environment is not compromised. The result would be sensors that are energy independent, stealthy and easy to distribute over a selected area.