Sunday, March 18, 2012

World’s first ‘biological computer’

Scientists in the US claim to have developed the world’s first biological computer that is made from bio-molecules and can decipher images encrypted on DNA chips.

A team from the Scripps Research Institute in California and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology claims it has created the computing system using bio-molecules.

In the research, when suitable software was applied to the biological computer, the scientists found that it could decrypt, separately, fluorescent images of Scripps Research Institute and Technion logos.

Although DNA has been used for encryption in the past, this is the first experimental demonstration of a molecular cryptosystem of images based on DNA computing.

In contrast to electronic computers, there are computing machines in which all four components are nothing but molecules. For example, all biological systems and even entire living organisms are such computers. Every one of us is a bio-molecular computer, a machine in which all four components are molecules that talk to one another logically. The hardware and software in these devices are complex biological molecules that activate one another to carry out some pre-determined chemical work.

The input is a molecule that undergoes specific, pre-determined changes, following a specific set of rules (software), and the output of this chemical computation process is another well-defined molecule.

No comments:

Post a Comment