Counting with DNA Calculator

Deoksirobonukleat acid (DNA) was not only save the secret code of living things. Lulu Qian and Erik Winfree, scientists from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, U.S. use of DNA to design DNA calculator calculator that is also called molecular or DNA computer.

There are 130 strands of DNA that is used to replace silicon chips. DNA to function as logic gates that process the incoming signal with a simple law. Incoming and outgoing signals were made ​​of DNA, rather than electrical pulses.

DNA Calculator created Qian and Winfrey is the repair of DNA computer system that has developed since 1990. DNA Calculator is 5 times more powerful than ever before, taking a more flexible system, so the prospect to be developed further in the future.

Qian and Winfrey developed a calculator to calculate the square root of numbers to 15 and rounding the result to the nearest integer. Counting process is quite complicated, involving a binary code and chemical communication system that can display the results.

Using DNA calculator to calculate square roots only demo capabilities. Estuary, according to Winfree, "If you ask the system for doing foreign chemicals such as calculating the square root of 4-digit binary number, then you may be able to use it for something else."

Andrew Ellington, an expert in biochemistry from the University of Texas have been thinking about how to apply a calculator or computer, developed DNA Qian and Winfree to diagnose malaria. "We can see ways in which Qian and Winfree, then design it," he said.

But, Martyn Amos, an expert on DNA computing from Manchester Metropolitan University said, the system is still limited because even require 10 hours to calculate square roots. "The biggest challenge is to apply this construction to work in living cells," Amos added.