  Escherichia coli has long been used as a model organism due to the extensive
experimental characterization of its pathways and molecular components. Take
chemotaxis as an example, which allows bacteria to sense and swim in response
to chemicals, such as nutrients and toxins. Many of the pathway's remarkable
sensing and signaling properties are now concisely summarized in terms of
design (or engineering) principles. More recently, new approaches from
information theory and stochastic thermodynamics have begun to address how
pathways process environmental stimuli and what the limiting factors are.
However, to fully capitalize on these theoretical advances, a closer connection
with single-cell experiments will be required.
