Self-assembling DNA circuits could power your next computer
By Tim Stevens 
posted May 14th 2010 9:41AM
posted May 14th 2010 9:41AM
Sick of silicon? It is getting a bit played, so maybe it's time to shift some paradigms, and Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer thinks that Right now the waffle-shaped structures he can form aren't particularly useful, but going forward the hope is that nearly any type of circuitry could be made to build itself in massive quantities at next to no cost. It sounds exciting, promising, almost utopian -- exactly the kind of research that we usually never hear of again.It's like taking pieces of a puzzle, throwing them in a box and as you shake the box, the pieces gradually find their neighbors to form the puzzle. What we did was to take billions of these puzzle pieces, throwing them together, to form billions of copies of the same puzzle.
Update: We've had a few people commenting on the inaccuracy of the word "proteins" above, so it's been fixed and we hereby invite all you armchair molecular biologists to get back to curing cancer already.
So if I go out right now and buy a Mac it will magically have this ability? Or should I wait 5 or 10 years?
@Sofabutt
You will need to wait the 10 years probably - or until the technology has seen a reasonable amount of use in the marketplace - for apple to invent it.
@Sofabutt
Up until apple starts using ("invents" in apple-ease) this, the apple company line with be - "If they are using self assembled DNA circuits, then they have failed."
@Sofabutt
All depends who has the patent and who can sue who the most really. Steve jobs doesn't like anything DNA related anyways.
@Sofabutt This article isn't about Apple at all, stfu.
@Engadget "exactly the kind of research that we usually never hear of again."
This sounds like all the research we hear about. Some advance that could revolutionize something big-time but no practical example and then we never hear of it again.
@savagemike
"at next to no cost" I'm sure apple will still find a way to charge us an arm and a leg for there magic.
@Sofabutt
T-1000 Due out shortly after.
Waffle shape not useful!?
Does your pancake hold the syrup in place even half so well!?
I think not!!
the vision after reading; DNA taken from smart humans thrown somewhere than a process beyond imagination *shaking of the future* preformed and a mass army of humanoids called *computers in the future* walk out and a little Jimmy on a his birthday gets to chose his birthday present..
"A Personal Computer"
Do they need me to donate some DNA? I can, right from the tap.
@html5FLOP
Personally I'd rather donate it to my fiance...but whatever cranks your tractor bro.
Skynet Inside.
"Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer thinks that pure proteins are where it's at." DNA and protein are two different substances.
@bjorntuwin
and they still have not fixed it!
@GTForce Now they did
DNA is made up of nucleotides...not amino acids, and hence is not a protein...silly tech reporter.
@dhamson
You beat me to it...
DNA =/ protein.
DNA contains the instructions to make protein, but they are chemically distinct.
@dhamson
Engadget getting technical details wrong ? surely not
nah..i don't believe it until i see it.
Is no one else concerned about self-assembling circuitry in massive quantities? I, for one, welcome...
Utopian or not, This is exactly the technology I think we need and should focus on since this is how nature builds stuff itself, by self assembly. It's how mussels build their shells and how you got assembled as well. In Nature there is no exploitation of rare materials, melting and forming under high pressure and no waste left at the end of a "products" life.
There is an inspiring talk at TED about biomimicry, I think the 2nd or 3rd example is about self assembly:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs.html
@dinsdale
this means that if you kick your computer it might remember someday and kick you back.
@tobsmonster2
I don't think so - it's about the production method, not that computers gain intelligence by using building blocks of DNA. According to Science DNA by itself is an inert mass just encoding information, it doesn't have intelligence as such.
And the first cyborg is born
@Console fanboy Have to agree if they are able to replicated during this process we are screwed,
@Console fanboy Yeah sounds eerily like the T1000 in Terminator2 that reassembles itself after being broken into pieces...
DNA is coated with histones, a type of protein which provides it with conformational and structural integrity, which plays a crucial role in dictating which genes are accessible to transcriptional machinery at any given time.
So, yes, "pure proteins =/= DNA"...I was just trying to elucidate some biochemical nexus between DNA and proteins, other than the obvious "DNA is the blueprint for a protein".
@Cwill127
I love it when people read a line of wiki and assume that they know everything.
DNA is only coated with histones in vivo, in eukaryotes. Especially if you're trying to engineer DNA molecules that self assemble into a certain shape, I would assume that you are working with pure DNA molecules, and most likely they are synthetic (I haven't had time to read the full original article, but if I had to guess).
BTW, DNA is not equal to protein, period.
@GTForce
"DNA is not equal to protein, period"
You sound far more knowledgeable than me on the subject (And I don't doubt it at all, I'm not that knowledgeable on the subject!)
..but would I be correct and saying that DNA is the "code", if you will, for the creation of proteins?
So it defines how the proteins for each individual is created and thus the differences in our DNA make-up?
Apologies if that's BS, I'm happy to stand corrected, just wanted clarification/correction for my own benefit if no-one else's :)
@FORDY
DNA is the "code" for RNA which then could(meaning it could do something else, miRNA, tRNA and so on) be used to make a protein. In all actuality though your roughly correct, but remember roughly! Don't go telling all your friends this is exactly correct, there are more factors involved.
I read this on Fudzilla and found it interesting, as in it uses light instead of electricity to work...(sounds familiar with the Apple laptop that uses light to work? which I heard some time ago...hmmm I wonder who has the patents now)
So... We'll have to shake our computers so that it works?
shake n' bake style...... yumzzzz
Hmmmmm I'm sure this could have some applications... like the one here at 6:20 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJJIYP9B3z8&feature=related
Great, now computer viruses can spread to humans.
Human. Turns on computer.
Computer. "Nah".
Think about it,
You'd never need to upgrade again cause you'd just give your computer some honey waffles and he'd grow a 2nd set of memory modules.
Fish should potentially improve its processing power as well!
Aw, did the big bad commentators hurt the iggy wiggy editor's feelings?
@DirtyVegas Yes.
*pout*
I am an armchair molecular biologists as much as you are an armchair tech columnist! And yes, I will now indeed go back to curing cancer, since I have a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology and currently doing research in one of the best cancer centers in US. Now, how about that?
And you thought, molecular biologists were computer illiterate lab-rats, who did not follow tech sites, didn't you? Don't worry, many molecular biologists (not me, though) think that computer guys are just nerds who know computers well but pretty much nothing else at all (such as the difference between proteins and DNA). ;)
Addendum: I loved the "DNA inside" logo, even though DNA should have been capital (yeah, I know, then it most likely wouldn't have looked this good). Hmmm, maybe I'll design and print such a T-shirt...
@GTForce Geez, I said thanks for the e-mail :p
ok, ok, yes you did. But do not forget that you may offend people with comments like that. Being an author of one of the best tech-sites, please think twice and write once next time. Anyway, you are most likely right anyway, since the chances are most of the people here actually ARE armchair molecular biologists :)
@GTForce Wow, it was meant to be cynical.
@GTForce
Chill dude, it's a Friday.
@thread
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS
@Sisyphus
It's a possibility that I could have seen what you might have been doing there...
Actually the technology is called DNA Origami.
So Star Trek predicts the future again? (See: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Bio-neural_gel_pack).