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2008-01-17

Programming Biomolecular Self-Assembly Pathways


Programming Biomolecular Self-Assembly Pathways from PhysOrg.com

Nature knows how to make proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) dance to assemble and sustain life. Inspired by this proof of principle, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have demonstrated that it is possible to program the pathways by which DNA strands self-assemble and disassemble, and hence to control the dynamic function of the molecules as they traverse these pathways.

[Continued]


"It's about time for the stone age of molecular compilers to begin."


1 comment:

Peter William Lount said...

Very interesting article and invention.

Ah yes, the stone age has arrived.

How well we know that with the current crop of digital programming languages.

Going beyond messaging between objects with one dimensional coding syntax. Programs functions or methods are one dimensional linear sequence of symbols. It's not even flat! It's just a line... one after the other...

Now comes the four dimensional programming systems simulating some process that produces results that are a complex equivalence to current linear programs.

In the real world bimolecular systems are constrained by physics, chemistry and the natural laws of the universe. Not so in the computational universe as the limits have more to do with the limits of our imagination.

Let loose the object oriented messaging systems into the 4th dimension!!! (3d plus time). Actually, into the Nth dimension.