DNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA and biochemistry and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies.
This field was initially developed by Leonard Adleman of the University of Southern California. In 1994, Adleman demonstrated a proof-of-concept use of DNA as a form of computation which was used to solve the seven-point Hamiltonian path problem. Since the initial Adleman experiments, advances have been made, and various Turing machines have been proven to be constructable.
There are works over one dimensional lengths, bidimensional tiles, and even three dimensional DNA graphs processing.
On April 28, 2004, Ehud Shapiro, Yaakov Benenson, Binyamin Gil, Uri Ben-Dor, and Rivka Adar at the Weizmann Institute announced in the journal Nature that they had constructed a DNA computer. This was coupled with an input and output module and is capable of diagnosing cancerous activity within a cell, and then releasing an anti-cancer drug upon diagnosis.
DNA computing is fundamentally similar to parallel computing in that it takes advantage of the many different molecules of DNA to try many different possibilities at once.
For certain specialized problems, DNA computers are faster and smaller than any other computer built so far. But DNA computing does not provide any new capabilities from the standpoint of computational complexity theory, the study of which computational problems are difficult to solve. For example, problems which grow exponentially with the size of the problem (EXPSPACE problems) on von Neumann machines still grow exponentially with the size of the problem on DNA machines. For very large EXPSPACE problems, the amount of DNA required is too large to be practical. (Quantum computing, on the other hand, does provide some interesting new capabilities).
DNA computing overlaps with, but is distinct from, DNA Nanotechnology. The latter uses the specificity of Watson-Crick basepairing to make novel structures out of DNA. These structures can be used for DNA computing, but they do not have to be. Additionally, DNA computing can be done without using the types of molecules made possible by DNA Nanotechnology
2007-02-04 00:44:55
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answer #1
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answered by tazdevil007au 3
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There is no DNA computer on the market, so the question about peripheral is moot.
Since DNA encodes information, it is theoretically possible to arrange the base sequence in such a way as to encode possible solutions to problems, and have the self-arranging molecule derive a sequence that answer a problem. The most that has been done is to try out some very specific problem in a test tube, and measure the proposed answers. We are far from any commercial application, however, as interface is not worked out yet.
2007-02-04 00:48:01
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answer #2
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answered by Vincent G 7
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Google.....
There's other ways to get DNA information, just a geletin and blood sample with electricity and Gram's Stain will give you ALL you need to know about someone's DNA.
2007-02-04 00:44:59
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answer #3
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answered by Hank Ferris 2
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