A programming language for DNA

November 15, 2007

Researchers have made an important leap in designing DNA-based circuits, reports this week’s Science. They’ve created the first system that allows amplification of desired DNA sequences without using enzymes — a step towards creating artificial biochemical circuits inside cells.

“They’ve begun to develop a programming language, a software, for DNA,” said Andrew Ellington of the University of Texas at Austin. The work is “a significant advance over previous [attempts],” he added. Scientists have previously used DNA to build synthetic biochemical circuits. But these networks have generally only been designed to perform one task. “These were machines that carried out a particular function or solved a particular problem,” Ellington told The Scientist. (The Scientist)