In a way that's what nature does :) I think this combination is quite common.

While visiting a lab in Paris, I saw some researchers using neuroevolution to teach a bird-like robot how to fly.

some links related to neuroevolution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroevolution_of_augmenting_t...

http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/hyperNEATpage

https://github.com/colgreen/sharpneat