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Charles R. Cantor coauthored the 2000 paper constructing a genetic toggle switch with Timothy S. Gardner and James J. Collins. The reported system coupled genetic regulation to a bistable memory-like response in Escherichia coli.^[ref]

A Boston University research account published in 2003 identifies Cantor with the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and describes work on DNA analysis and haplotypes.^[ref]

A simple genetics example makes the measurement problem tangible. The two arrangements AB/ab and Ab/aB both produce an individual with genotype A/a at one site and B/b at another. They nevertheless place the variants on different chromosome copies. Measuring the unphased genotype at each site therefore does not by itself recover the haplotypes.

The example illustrates a reusable distinction between identifying individual sequence variants and determining their joint arrangement. The institutional account concerns methods intended to obtain that longer-range genetic information. Together with the coauthored switch study, it shows two different quantitative questions in biotechnology: reconstructing the organization of genetic material and constructing a network with a chosen dynamical response.

David J. Craig is the credited writer of Boston University's 14 November 2003 account of research connecting dynamical systems, biology and biomedical engineering. His article describes James J. Collins's work on noise and sensation, including vibrating gel insoles intended to improve the detection of weak pressure signals from the feet. This is a contribution to communicating the research; the article attributes the experimental work to the researchers.^[ref]

The scientific puzzle in that account is stochastic resonance: under suitable conditions, adding noise can improve the detection of a weak signal. A simple explanatory model is a detector that responds when $x+\eta >\theta$, where $x$ is the signal, $\eta$ the noise and $\theta$ a threshold. If $x<\theta$, a detector without noise never responds; a fluctuating $\eta$ gives a nonzero probability of crossing the threshold. The same noise can also produce a response when the signal is absent, so an increase in threshold crossings alone does not establish improved discrimination. Craig's account places this counterintuitive mechanism in the concrete setting of mechanical stimulation of the sole rather than claiming that noise always helps.^[ref]