Molecular computing: DNA is sometimes called the software of life. Now it is being used to build computers that can run inside cells
EVER since the advent of the integrated circuit in the 1960s, computing has been synonymous with chips of solid silicon. But some researchers have been taking an alternative approach: building liquid computers using DNA and its cousin RNA, the naturally occurring nucleic-acid molecules that encode genetic information inside cells. Rather than encoding ones and zeroes into high and low voltages that switch transistors on and off, the idea is to use high and low concentrations of these molecules to propagate signals through a kind of computational soup.
This article appeared in the Technology Quarterly section of the print edition under the headline “Computing with soup”
From the March 3rd 2012 edition
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