Abstract
Natural Computing is a field of research in Computer Science aimed at reinterpreting
biological phenomena as computing mechanisms. This allows unconventional computing
architectures to be proposed in which computations are performed by atoms, DNA strands,
cells, insects or other biological elements. Membrane Computing is a branch of Natural
Computing in which biological phenomena of interest are related with interactions between
molecules inside cells. The research in Membrane Computing has lead to very important
theoretical results that show how, in principle, cells could be used to solve any
(computable) computational problem with performances that cannot be obtained by
conventional computers. However, the implementation of a cell-based computational
architecture seems not easily achievable. On the other hand, models of Membrane
Computing have found an alternative application to the description of biological systems,
with the aim of developing simulators and other analysis tools for the study of biological
problems.