Tuesday, February 14, 2012

DNA Computers: Doctors in a Cell


Soujanya A Pasumarthi.
Department of Biotechnology, Koneru Lakshimah University, India.


ABSTRACT :
Think of DNA as software and enzymes as hardware, put them together in a test tube. The way in which these molecules undergo chemical reactions with each other allows simple operations to be performed as a byproduct of the reaction. DNA Computers use deoxyribonucleic acids …A (Adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine) and T (Thymine) … as a memory units, and recombinant DNA techniques already in existence carry out the fundamental operations.

DNA Computing devices could perhaps most importantly revolutionize the pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. Some scientists predict a future where our bodies are patrolled by tiny DNA computers that monitor our wellbeing and release the right drugs to repair damaged or unhealthy tissue as “Doctors in a Cell”, operating inside living cells and sensing anomalies in the host. DNA computer can detect the presence of
diagnostic markers for cancer and release a suitable cancer treatment molecule.

Research is going on hope to some day inject tiny computers in to humans to zap viruses fix good cells gone bad and otherwise keep us healthy as “Doctors inside the Cell”.