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Digital DNA Circuits
TheSync writes "ScienceNews has a story about digital DNA circuits. The circuits use proteins that activate or deactivate genes on the DNA for control. Since an inverter and an AND gate have been created, any digital logic circuit can now be done in DNA. Moreover, evolution can help make circuit elements work better. There is even a "databook" of BioBricks circuit elements and BioSPICE for biocircuit simulation."
In the course of her work with Watson and Crick, Rosalind Franklin had to do a serious amount math by hand (Patterson analysis to create Patterson maps). Later, after her work on DNA she was forced to hire a computer (an 18yr old girl) to do the leg work on the data she gathered on the Tobacco Mosaic Virus.
Today I read here http://www.sciencenews.org/20030426/bob11.asp (Computer circuits made of genes may soon program bacteria)
"Silicon circuits perform complex operations using a handful of simple components known as logic gates. Genetic- circuit engineers are now building the same devices inside cells."
I wonder, what she would have thought, to know that very thing she was studying could some day be used to do the math that took up so much of her time.