Researchers may soon be able to "program" synthetic DNA as if they were writing a JAVA code.
The process could allow chemists to control how DNA reacts within a cell or test tube, a University of Washington press release reported.
"A team led by the University of Washington has developed a programming language for chemistry that it hopes will streamline efforts to design a network that can guide the behavior of chemical-reaction mixtures in the same way that embedded electronic controllers guide cars, robots and other devices. In medicine, such networks could serve as "smart" drug deliverers or disease detectors at the cellular level," the news release reported.
The idea of chemical reaction networks has been around for a century, they are a "language" that describes how chemical mixtures behave. The UW researchers took the language to the next level by using it to direct the movement of synthetic molecules.
"We start from an abstract, mathematical description of a chemical system, and then use DNA to build the molecules that realize the desired dynamics," corresponding author Georg Seelig, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering and of computer science and engineering, said. "The vision is that eventually, you can use this technology to build general-purpose tools."
Creating a chemical reaction network is extremely difficult and complex, the research team hoped to make the process more flexible.
"I think this is appealing because it allows you to solve more than one problem," Seelig said. "If you want a computer to do something else, you just reprogram it. This project is very similar in that we can tell chemistry what to do,"
Networks of molecules exist naturally and help to regulate cells in the human body, the project hopes to create a synthetic version of that system. The man-made network is not ready for practical use, but could one day create molecules with the ability to "self-assemble within cells and serve as 'smart' sensors. These could be embedded in a cell, then programmed to detect abnormalities and respond as needed, perhaps by delivering drugs directly to those cells," the news release reported.
