Convergence of Biology and Computers?

Pankaj Arora asks: "This summer I am working on both Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology research projects at the Mayo Clinic Rochester. Being an MIS major with a heavy CS background, I've been learning about biochemistry performing polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) and RNA retranslation among other things. I've learned biology works a lot like computers; binary has 1s and 0s, DNA has nucleotides: A, T, C, and G. Binary has 8 bits to a byte, DNA has 3 nucleotides to a codon. Computers and biology seem to have a natural fit; information is encoded and represented 'digitally' in a sense. I was wondering what people thought about the future of biology-based and genetics-based computing due to the immense efficiencies that lie in nature. This has been discussed to an extent here, but there were some specific aspects that I feel are quite important and were not discussed thoroughly, thus I have a few questions to pose to the Slashdot community."

"The aspects I would like discussed are as follows:

• In the long run, will biology rewrite computing or will modern day technology concepts and theory be integrated into biology? If both are true, which will have the greater effect? I understand long run is ambiguous in this question, but Iâ(TM)m interested in all thoughts using any applicable definition.
• Tied to the first question: How will the nature of computing, and how we perceive it, change due to biology integration? More to the point, how much of the theory we learn today may change?
• What will be the biggest issue determining the success of the adoption of biology-integrated computing? Will it be technology factors or will it be societal factors (e.g., rebellion by the Right Wing), or something else? What things must hold true to make the idea succeed?
• And perhaps the hottest issue of all: Is there anything inherently wrong with pursuing this avenue? What may be some of the consequences?

I'll have some experts from Mayo Clinic contribute some of their expertise to this discussion."

Comments

Wow !

[doru]

...there were some specific aspects that I feel are quite important and were not discussed thoroughly, thus I have a few questions to pose to the Slashdot community.

You must be new around here...

Binary, Genetics, and the ARMY

[dfn5]

binary has 1s and 0s, DNA has nucleotides: A, T, C, and G.
The ARMY has live soldiers and dead soldiers

Binary has 8 bits to a byte, DNA has 3 nucleotides to a codon.
The ARMY has 8 to 10 soldiers to a squad.

Computers and biology seem to have a natural fit;
The ARMY also seems to fit the computer model using the same criteria. Does that make it a computer?

Obligatory Comment?

[goldspider]

Who wants to put some money down on a wager that the first significant merger of biology and computers will be accomplished by the pr0n industry?

Re:GEB chats all about the overlaps

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd better skip it. The evidence from your post is that you don't have the necessary reading comprehension skills.