Enforcing logical delays in DNA computing systems

Abstract

DNA computing has the potential to create powerful devices, but, in the context of well-mixed systems, sequentiality of operations is hard to achieve. To enforce such sequentiality, we propose a generic delay gate that can be interfaced with virtually any DNA system. Since it is system-independent, our delay gate can be used as an off-the-shelf library to accelerate the design of increasingly complex systems. Additionally, we checked the feasibility of our design by testing various in vitro implementations. We also present a theoretical proof of concept of its applicability by using it to complement an existing DNA module library, the DNA toolbox, to design new systems.