A trillion computers in a drop of water: Scientists build a nanoscale computing machine using biological...( e is designed to detect a particular st...)

e is designed to detect a particular state-symbol combination. A two-state, two-symbol automaton has four such combinations. For each combination the nanocomputer has two possible next moves, to remain in the same state or to change to the other state, allowing eight software molecules to cover all possibilities.

In each processing step the input molecule hybridizes with a software molecule that has a complementary sticky end, allowing Ligase to seal them together using two ATP molecules as energy. Then comes Fok-I, detecting a special site in the software molecule known as the recognition site.

It cleaves the input molecule in a location determined by the software molecule, thus exposing a sticky end that encodes the next input symbol and the next state of the computation. Once the last input symbol is processed, a sticky end encoding the final state of the computation is exposed and detected, again by hybridization and ligation, by one of two output display molecules. The resulting molecule, which reports the output of the computation, is made visible to the human eye in a process known as gel electrophoresis.

The nanocomputer created is too simple to have immediate applications, however it may pave the way to future computers that can operate within the human body with unique biological and pharmaceutical applications.

For instance, such a future computer could sense an abnormal biochemical change in the body and decide how to correct it by synthesizing and releasing the necessary drug, says Prof. Zvi Livneh, a DNA expert from the Institutes Department of Biological Chemistry who collaborated on this project.

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Contact: Jeffrey Sussman
jeffrey@acwis.org
212-895-7951
American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science
21-Nov-2001

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