The computer addresses the first DNA complex calculations - It 'was built the DNA computer to more 'complex in the world: and' able to calculate square roots using molecular code of life instead of traditional silicon microchip. E 'and described in Science was awarded a research group at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This is the most 'sophisticated circuit ever achieved biochemical, enclosed in a tube and in which unit' consisting of the DNA play a role similar to that of conventional transistors on silicon chips.Circuits of this type allow researchers to explore the way in which information is processed in biological systems. The applications of this technology are still far away, but you could imagine in the future to introduce a blood sample for analysis in a DNA computer to know in detail all the molecules and make a diagnosis.
The bioengineers and computer scientists coordinated by Lulu Qian and Erik Winfree have developed a molecular circuit starting from 130 strands of DNA, organized into circuits capable of performing logical operations such as''and'',''or''and''not'' . These are performed by exploiting the capacity 'of the DNA molecules to bind spontaneously to each other depending on the information contained in the' letters' of the life of the alphabet (ie A, G, C and T, which stand for adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine) that make their filaments. The system developed in the U.S. and is' shown to calculate the square root of a 4-bit number, but to do it took several hours. The researchers point out, however 'that the purpose of their experiments is not to create biological machines capable of competing with the traditional computer power and speed'. The real goal 'to be able to integrate these circuits directly within living biological systems, such as cells and tissues, so' as to diagnose and treat them 'where they are born.
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