Biologically relevant molecular finite automata

Abstract

Bio-Molecular Computing (BMC) has been rapidly evolving as an independent field at the interface between computer science, mathematics, chemistry, and biology. Over the years, numerous architectures of autonomous molecular computing devices have been developed in the lab on the basis of opportunities offered by molecular biology techniques. This account focuses mainly on the realization of programmable DNA-based finite-state automata that can compute autonomously upon mixing all their components in solution.The main advantage of autonomous BMC devices over electronic computers arises from their ability to interact directly with biological systems and even with living organisms without any interface. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that appropriately designed computing machines can produce output signals in the form of a specific biological function via direct interaction with living cells. Additional topics are briefly included to point at interesting opportunities in the field and to describe some of the potential applications and extension of the basic concepts. These include logic evaluators and logic gates that operate in cells, applications in developmental biology, as well as chemical encoding and processing of alphanumeric information.