"During the past century, programmable technologies evolved from spinning gears and vacuum tubes to transistors and microchips. Now, a group of Caltech researchers and their colleagues at the University of Washington, Harvard University, and UC San Francisco are exploring how biologically important molecules—like DNA, RNA, and proteins—could be the next generation of programmable devices."

"The researchers aim to use molecular programming to establish general-purpose, reliable, and easy-to-use methods for engineering complex nanoscale systems from biomolecules. In the hands of users, these methods could be used to create novel self-assembling electronic and optical devices, powerful nanoscale tools for the study of biology, and programmable molecular circuits for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. In one application, the researchers hope to program DNA molecules to carry out recognition and logical circuitry for exquisitely targeted drug delivery, thus reducing drug side effects and increasing efficacy.

Today, the largest synthetic molecular programs—human-designed sequences of the A, T, C, and G bases that make up DNA—contain on the order of 60,000 bases. "That's comparable to the amount of RAM memory in my first computer, a 1983 Apple II+," says Winfree. Designed systems in the future will only become more complex, a challenge that MPP researchers aim to tackle by approaching biological systems with something computer scientists call the abstraction hierarchy."




(Conceptual representation of programming languages for specifying molecular components and molecular systems, part of the Molecular Programming Project. Credit: Lulu Qian, Caltech)
http://www.caltech.edu/content/team-led-caltech-wins-second-10-million-award-research-molecular-programming