IoBNT is nonconventional in every respect: nonconventional things (e.g., engineered bacteria, nanobiosensors, nanoparticles) coordinated via nonconventional communication methods (e.g., molecular communications) in nonconventional environments (e.g., inside human body) for nonconventional applications (e.g., continuous intrabody health monitoring, smart drug delivery without side effects).

Our quest to develop practical IoBNT applications bears many challenges, that can basically be worded in questions such as

• How to establish communication between highly heterogeneous bio-nano things, which also happen to be severely limited in size, complexity, and resources
• How to deal with the adverse effects of nonconventional environments (e.g., fluctuating physiological conditions) on communication
• How to seamlessly interface IoBNT with conventional macroscale networks
• How to ensure the coexistence of artificial IoBNT with natural IoBNT (e.g., cell signaling) in a compatible manner
• How to leverage the communication of bio-nano things to further expand the economic and societal impact of IoBNT with novel applications

To target these challenges, we follow a highly interdisciplinary methodology integrating expertise in ICT, molecular communications, microfluidics, nanobiosensors, graphene and related nanomaterials. We are currently

• building realistic models for molecular communications (MC), supported by finite-element and particle-based spatial stochastic simulations
• designing new MC transceivers enabled by novel nanomaterials (e.g., graphene) and synthetic biology tools
• fabricating microfluidic MC testbeds with micro/nanoscale MC transceivers
• developing practical and low-complexity modulation, detection and channel estimation techniques by exploiting unique properties of nanoscale and biological interactions, e.g., ligand-receptor interactions
• exploring new nano/macro and bio/cyber interfaces
• and searching for new nanocommunication paradigms, e.g., FRET-based nanocommunication
  

Just as the overarching endeavour of space exploration has given rise to countless spinoff technologies exploited mostly in other areas, e.g., cochlear implants and CMOS image sensors, so our interdisciplinary quest to develop practical IoBNT applications is hoped to have far-reaching impact on, for example, microfluidic drug delivery, biosensing for dynamic biomarkers, ICT understanding of biological systems, multiplexed biosensing, development of new diagnosis and treatment techniques, and many more.