Similar
to using Python or Java to write code for a computer, chemists soon could be
able use a structured set of instructions to “program” how DNA molecules
interact in a test tube or a cell.A team led by the University of Washington [UW] 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.
Chemists and educators teach and use chemical reaction networks, a century-old language of equations that describes how mixtures of chemicals behave. The UW engineers take this language a step further and use it to write programs that direct the movement of tailor-made 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,” said
corresponding author Georg Seelig, a UW assistant professor of electrical
engineering and of computer science and engineering. “The vision is that
eventually, you can use this technology to build general-purpose tools.”
Currently,
when a biologist or chemist makes a certain type of molecular network, the
engineering process is complex, cumbersome and hard to repurpose for building
other systems. The UW engineers wanted to create a framework that gives
scientists more flexibility. Seelig likens this new approach to programming
languages that tell a computer what to do.
“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.”
An
example chemical program. Yan Liang, L2XY2.com An example of a chemical
program. Here, A, B and C are different chemical species. Humans and other
organisms already have complex networks of nano-sized molecules that help to
regulate cells and keep the body in check. Scientists now are finding ways to
design synthetic systems that behave like biological ones with the hope that
synthetic molecules could support the body’s natural functions.
To that
end, a system is needed to create synthetic DNA molecules that vary according
to their specific functions. The new approach isn’t ready to be applied in the
medical field, but future uses could include using this framework to make
molecules that 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.
Seelig
and colleague Eric Klavins, a University of Washington associate professor of
electrical engineering, recently received $2 million from the National Science
Foundation as part of a national initiative to boost research in molecular
programming. The new language will be used to support that larger initiative,
Seelig said.
Co-authors
of the paper are Yuan-Jyue Chen, a UW doctoral student in electrical
engineering; David Soloveichik of the University of California, San Francisco;
Niranjan Srinivas at the California Institute of Technology; and Neil Dalchau,
Andrew Phillips and Luca Cardelli of Microsoft Research.
The
research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome
Fund and the National Centers for Systems Biology.
An article from University of Washington website
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An article from University of Washington website
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