Computing Inside a Living Cell 41
First time accepted submitter Rozanne writes "The new issue of Stanford Medicine magazine has a story on Stanford professor Drew Endy's creation of microscopic computers out of biological components for use inside living cells. His work is a mash-up of molecular biology and computer engineering: Instead of a computer made of silicon, metal and plastic, it's a computer made of DNA, RNA and enzymes. Endy says biologists are typically confounded at first when he explains how the computers work and how they could be used."
Endy is no longer the leader in this field (Score:2, Insightful)
For all his talk, Drew Endy hasn't actually pushed the synthetic biology field forward, and it was always questionable whether his vision of "standardized biological parts" would be the best way to engineer biology. His analogies to computer engineering are mostly false, as biology operates according to physical and chemical rules. Not Ohm's Law. Not digital logic. You can engineer biology to mimic digital logic, but it's truly analog governed by biomolecular interactions and stochastic dynamical processes.
There are other people in the Synthetic Biology field who are doing much more innovative and interesting work.
Go read stories about them.
the most important part: it's free for everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
With electronic signal amplification, a very small change in electrical flow is sufficient to open and close gates that control massive rivers of electrons. “The biological transistor, what we call a ‘transcriptor,’ does the same thing.
He has formally donated the transcriptor and biological logic gates to the public domain via the BioBrick Public Agreement. That means anyone is free to use them. A similar declaration for the biological Internet is in process.
The only piece of biocomputer technology Stanford and Endy have patented is the biological digital memory.
“Some other groups have patented technologies claiming to accomplish a similar goal,” explains Endy. “If we have a patent, we can assure the technology is free and available to all simply by not pursuing our patent rights. But if we don’t have a patent, someone else could claim the technology and restrict its use.”
finally someone that invents a great technology and understands that patents stifle innovation!
bold tag! :)
Re:Endy is no longer the leader in this field (Score:5, Insightful)
His analogies to computer engineering are mostly false, as biology operates according to physical and chemical rules. Not Ohm's Law. Not digital logic. You can engineer biology to mimic digital logic, but it's truly analog governed by biomolecular interactions and stochastic dynamical processes.
(human) brains are both analog and digital simultaneously. [yale.edu]
even if you argue it's really all analog, the fact that you can mentally process digital logic means that you are digital computer... with lots of extra features. :)