CID has been used for a number of applications in biomedical research. In most applications each dimerizing protein is expressed as part of a fusion construct with other proteins of interest. Adding the chemical dimerizing agent brings both constructs into proximity with each other and induces interactions between the proteins of interest. CID has been used to regulate and monitor gene transcription, signal transduction and post translational modifications in proteins.
Recently, CID has also been used to create a basic component of biocomputers, logic gates, from genetically manipulated cells. In this application, two independent CID systems, one based on plant proteins and one based on bacterial proteins are expressed in the same cell. Each set of proteins can be induced to dimerize by the addition of a separate chemical. By creating fusion proteins with the dimerizing proteins, membrane bound proteins and proteins that activate cell ruffling an AND gate and OR gate can be created that take chemical dimerizing agents as inputs and returns a ruffled or unruffled state as output.