World's First DNA-Based Logic Gates Could Lead to Injectable Bio-computers
DNA Using DNA-based logic gates that behave like their electronic equivalent, we could someday engineer complex injectable computers that could monitor and treat our bodies from the inside. ynse via Flickr We've got computers that run on a single iodine molecule and transistors made of just a handful of atoms, so why not create electronic components out of tiny strands of DNA? A team of researchers at Hebrew University has for the first time created DNA-based logic gates that could lead to tiny injectable bio-computers capable of making simple calculations inside the body. Formed from short DNA strands and their complements, the DNA logic gates closely mimic their electronic counterparts by representing one of two states - like the zeros and ones of binary code - depending on the presence of an input. In tests, they modeled a DNA version of an XOR logic gate that generates an output when one of...