Saturday, March 30, 2013

A Computer Inside a Living Cell? It Has Now Been Done

Humans have long been adding technology to their body to improve health, like pacemakers for example. But scientists have recently announced the creation of a bit of technology from a living system — they’ve made a computer in a cell.
Illustration of DNA (Image: Shutterstock.com)
Stanford University bioengineers made a transistor – the “transcriptor” – out of genetic material (DNA and RNA).
“Biological computers can be used to study and reprogram living systems, monitor environments and improve cellular therapeutics,” Drew Endy, assistant professor of bioengineering and senior author of the paper published in the journal Science with the lead author Jerome Bonnet, said in a statement.