Manjitha L Matarage^1,2, Sriinithi Maiyappan^1,2, Shannon SY Sim^1,2, Geeta Ramesh^1,2, Lingxin Low^1,2, Maurice HT Ling^1,2,3*

¹School of Life Sciences, Management Development Institute of Singapore, Singapore
²Department of Applied Sciences, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
³HOHY PTE LTD, Singapore

*Corresponding Author: Maurice HT Ling, School of Life Sciences, Management Development Institute of Singapore, Singapore.

Received: July 09, 2025; Published: July 26, 2025

Abstract

Digital organisms (DOs) are computer-based programs designed to replicate the behaviour of biological processes, such as replication and evolution. This makes DOs a useful tool to study evolutionary processes, especially ethically challenging areas such as antibiotics resistance. Currently, there is no systematic reviews to-date examining the range of applications and studies using DOs. Here, we aim to conduct a systematic review, using studies indexed in PubMed prior to 01 January 2025, on the range of applications and studies using DOs. A total of 147 papers were identified; of which, 80 were included after screening. These 80 studies were examined by focusing on five questions; namely, (a) What was the study about? (b) What tool(s) was/were used? (c) How DOs helped in the study? (d) What was/were discovered from the studies? (e) How were findings using DOs relevant to biology? Our findings show a wide range of applications of DOs in seven main areas; namely, (i) biomechanics and movement modelling, (ii) evolutionary and adaptation, (iii) molecular and cellular evolution, (iv) ecology and community dynamics, (v) computational and synthetic systems, (vi) biomedical and environmental applications, (vii) theoretical and cross-disciplinary studies; with 31 of the 80 studies (38%) uses Avida as experimental platform

Keywords: Digital organisms (DOs); Biology

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Citation

Citation: Maurice HT Ling., et al. “Systematic Review (Up to 31 January 2025) on the Applications of Digital Organisms"Acta Scientific Microbiology 8.8 (2025): 14-26.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2025 Maurice HT Ling., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.