Algebras and Languages for Molecular Programming

Abstract

Nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) encode information digitally, and are currently the only truly ‘user-programmable’ entities at the molecular scale. They can be used to manufacture nano-scale structures, to produce physical forces, to act as sensors and actuators, and to do computation in between. Eventually we will be able to interface them with biological machinery to detect and cure diseases at the cellular level under program control. The basic technology to create and manipulate these devices has existed for many years, but the imagination necessary to exploit them has been evolving slowly. Recently, some very simple computational schemes have been developed that are autonomous (run on their own once started) and involve only short (easily synthesizable) DNA strands with no other complex molecules.