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Biotechnology

Logic goes in vitro

Nature Nanotechnology volume 2, pages 84–85 (2007)Cite this article

Since its earliest inception, the computer has evolved with the development of faster and smaller electronics. Now, DNA logic circuits tread in water — where no electronic circuit can.

The first universal computer, described by Alan Turing in 1936, was a rather abstract mathematical device. It consisted of symbols written on a potentially unlimited length of tape and a simple device that could move along the tape and process and rewrite each symbol, one at a time, according to a finite set of rules. A decade later, John von Neumann and colleagues conceived and implemented the first practical programmable computer, representing Boolean logic '1's and '0's through the presence or absence of electrical signals. Since then practically all computers have been built according to the von Neumann design.

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Figure 1: DNA based logical gates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ehud Shapiro and Binyamin Gil are in the Departments of Computer Science and Applied Math and Biological Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100 Israel. ehud.shapiro@weizmann.ac.il; binyamin.gil@weizmann.ac.il,

    Ehud Shapiro & Binyamin Gil

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  1. Ehud Shapiro
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  2. Binyamin Gil
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Shapiro, E., Gil, B. Logic goes in vitro. Nature Nanotech 2, 84–85 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.23

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