Molecular computing: Does DNA compute?

Molecular computing: Does DNA compute?

The concise algorithm by which protein functions are encoded in DNA sequences, and the flexible and adaptable operating systems of biological organisms, have long been coveted by computer scientists. Similarly, the information storage capacity of computers and their extraordinary problem-solving speed have been the envy of biologists. The parallels between the two systems are many, and it would...

Dna Computing { Molecular Computation

Computing education that doesn't compute

The current UK debate on Computing in schools is driven by a specific issue: what should form the basis of a modern Computing education. It’s a perfect storm that has been brewing for some time, but the recent comments1 of Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, have moved it into the political arena. Currently, the mandatory educational component of Computing (from years 11 to 16) is taught as I...

Appendix to DNA Reservoir Computing: A Novel Molecular Computing Approach

In this appendix, we justify the reduction of the nonlinear ODE system describing three coupled deoxyribozyme oscillators. We show that the kinetic simulation of the deoxyribozime chemistry agrees with the result of the laboratory experiment. We make simplifying assumption that help us reduce a system of nine ODEs into three linear ODEs that is more amenable to mathematical analysis. We show th...

DNA Reservoir Computing: A Novel Molecular Computing Approach

We propose a novel molecular computing approach based on reservoir computing. In reservoir computing, a dynamical core, called a reservoir, is perturbed with an external input signal while a readout layer maps the reservoir dynamics to a target output. Computation takes place as a transformation from the input space to a high-dimensional spatiotemporal feature space created by the transient dyn...