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

2nd hoo-man post

[Anonymous Coward]

i am 6 of 9

Biology and Computing Convergence = nonsense.

[cabazorro]

Analogies between computing and Biology is idiotic. Biology is an expression of Chemestry + Physics. Computing is an expression of Logic + Mathematics. Enuf said.

You asked vague questions. I sort of answered.

[I'm a racist.]

For such a well formatted/written article, this is one of the least focused things ever posted on Slashdot. Pankaj Arora smells like attention deficit disorde to me, that and curry of course. This is a pretty vague, dumb, and useless set of questions. For example, what the fuck is meant by biology-integrated computing? I'll still spout off about them anyway.

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 don't see biology really rewriting computing. Computing has a pretty solid mathematical foundation, backed by rigorous proofs. We will come up with new algorithms based on observations of biological systems (along the lines of ANNs). Also, we will come up with new algorithms to deal with biological systems, that may later be adapted for other uses. One example of this is my first patent (well, patent disclosure). I patented the use of a gapped alignment algorithm, used to compare DNA sequences, and used it to do conversion of multimedia content in linear time (linear with the media size), regardless of the number of conversion parameters (ie. display size, # of colors, device memory, user preferences, etc).

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?

Biology integration... in what sense? The integration of biological systems into computational infrastructure, or the integration of computational infrastructure into biological systems? These are two very different things. Anyway, as I said above, the nature of computation is pretty much fixed. Even the idea of quantum computing can be pretty well covered by modern computational theory (with some serious adjustments, of course). If you mean the addition of computational devices to biological systems, that will just help increase the, already increasing, ubiquitousness of computers.

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?

It sounds like the question is talking about "cyborg-like" implantation of computers into the body. Or, more likely, the use of biological systems to do computations. In general, this isn't good. The problem with biological systems is that they can not be driven too hard (for all you hardware-obsessed jerkoffs, this means you can't overclock meat). They are typically highly specific, and not well adapted to general purpose computing. Even the brain, which does quite a good job at general purpose calculations, is broken into a bunch of pretty specialized areas. Of course, a modern silicon based computer is a collection of highly specialized bits too.

There are people out there with cybernetic eyes, chips in their arms that transmit feelings to their partners, etc. Some people are bothered by that, some think it's great. There are always technophobes and early-adopters. I don't see much moral debate coming about the replacement of eyes for the blind. If you replace working eyes, that would be a different story, but people learned to accept breast implants, liposuction, and botox injections...

I really have no idea what this question is really trying to ask.

Is there anything inherently wrong with pursuing this avenue? What may be some of the consequences?

No. New shit will get developed, people will use it, laws will be made, people will feel happy/sad/angry, an ice age will come, people will die (some may survive), the sun will scorch all life off the planet.

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

Will you have any of them lick my balls?

Re:digital media

[dublin]

there are random mutations every time a cell divides, it's called evolution.

Hmm, although no doubt politically correct in your domain of study, that's not an assertion that's borne out by real-life DNA studies. In fact, the wole thing appears to be quite an ugly mess, causing the creation of ever-more-unlikely orthodoxy in order to maintain the ridiculous claims of evolution...