DNA computing

As DNA, RNA, or more generally biocomputer computer are referred to, which are based on the use of the genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) or ribonucleic acid ( RNA) as a storage and processing medium. They represent a range of bioelectronics dar.

The development of bio-computers is still in its initial phase. The first theoretical impulses that data processing on the basis of biological molecules must be possible, provided the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, founder of nanotechnology, in a lecture at the end of the 1950s.

Idea

The organization and complexity of all living things is based on a coding with four different bases in the DNA molecule. Thereby, the DNA is a medium which is perfectly suited for the data processing. According to various calculations, a DNA computer would yield a quantity of liquid from a liter and it contains six grams of DNA, a theoretical storage capacity of 3072 exabytes. The theoretically achievable rate due to the massive parallelism of the calculations would be enormous. Per second, about 1 million tera- operations produce, while the most powerful computers today just reach tera- operation per second.

Examples

1994 Leonard Adleman presented with his TT 100 of the first prototype of a computer in the form of DNA of a test tube with 100 microliters of DNA solution. With the help of this device he was able to solve simple math problems from reaction of DNA.

In another experiment, a simple variant of the traveling salesman problem was "solved" by means of a DNA computer. For this purpose a type DNA fragment was generated for each city visited the task. Such a DNA fragment is capable of binding to other such DNA fragments capable. These DNA fragments were actually prepared and mixed together in a test tube. It came within seconds of the smaller DNA fragments larger DNA fragments representing different itineraries. A chemical reaction (which took days ), the DNA fragments, representing longer itineraries eliminated. What remained was the solution to this problem, but can not be evaluated with today's means. This experiment is not really suitable for application, however, a proof of concept.

Application

It is predicted that DNA computers are mainly there to provide new solutions, where they differ from " traditional computers ": In memory and in the parallelization. One field of application is that eg cryptanalysis, by every possible key massively parallel tested simultaneously. This would make up now recognized as safe key lengths not to break with today's computers, vulnerable.

The realization of the DNA computer fails to date mainly due to technical problems. The goal of current research is to provide a hybrid system in which the DNA technology upstream electronic components.