A novel approach, based on cell biology, has been developed for solving combinatorial optimization problems. This methodology, called the developmental approach, induces solutions to problems, i.e. organisms, through the processes of  cell creation, cell division, cell interaction and cell migration. Areas currently being researched include:

Pillay, N. Incorporating Chaos into the Developmental Approach for Solving the Examination Timetabling Problem, International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation, accepted for publication.

Rajah, C., Pillay, N. A Study of Cell Depletion in the Developmental Approach for the Uncapacitated Examination Timetabling Problem, accepted for publication in the proceedings of ORSSA 2013, 15-18 September, Stellenbosch, 102-111.

Pillay, N. (2011) A Study of Noise Operators in the Developmental Approach for the Examination Timetabling Problem, accepted for publication in proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Intelligent Computing and Intelligent Systems (ICIS 2011), Guangzhou, China, Vol. 3, 281-286,November 2011, IEEE Press.

Pillay, N. (2009) A Revised Developmental Approach to the Uncapacitated Examination Timetabling Problem, accepted for publication in the proceedings of SAICSIT 2009, Gauteng, October 2009, 187-192, ACM Conference Series.

Pillay N., Banzhaf W. (2008) A Developmental Approach to the Uncapacitated Examination Timetabling Problem, in PPSN 2008, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5199, 276-285, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Banzhaf W., Pillay N. (2007) Why Complex Systems Engineering needs Biological Development, in Complexity, Vol. 13, No. 2, 12-21, Wiley.