DIY Biological Computing

[Dirk Broenink]

So, has anyone on here thought about doing some of their own biological computing? 

I wonder how hard it is to make a simple 'adder element' with a plant, or bacteria, or something similar. So that when you stimulate it with two certain patterns (representing numbers) in a certain specific order or place(s) it results in the correct pattern representing the addition of those two numbers. 

[Rowan Copley]

Making logic gates out of DNA or RNA is probably the easiest way to do this, though there are difficulties in scaling. Here's a good paper if you're interested: http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~lulu/seesaw_digital_circuits2011_SI.pdf. Or did you have something else in mind?

[Dirk Broenink]

I had nothing specifically in mind, it seems like a very interesting thing to do and I wanted to hear about what others are doing, DIY-style :)

The paper seems good, however I have a lot of trouble understanding it. I have to search google for most of the terms and even then the clue is lost on me.

[Pieter]

DNA computing is mostly a theoretical field if I remember correctly. There's a Belgian DIYBiologist working on it. Judging by your name that might not be to far away from where you live. Send me a message on pie...@waag.org if you're interested.

[Aayush Aggarwal]

 This post might give an overview of research in DNA computing.
http://www.caltech.edu/content/team-led-caltech-wins-second-10-million-award-research-molecular-programming

[Lisa Thalheim]

Hi Dirk,

agreed, biocomputing is a fun subject!
There are several approaches, some more suited to a DIY approach and
some less so I think.
Most of the biocomputing approaches require quite a few resources, but
maybe you can find something that can be done DIY-style on a small budget?

I wrote an introduction to biocomputing a while back, maybe that's
useful to you:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwX2teSkjvPlSUVhNkZuX3hTUWc/edit?usp=sharing

Cheers,
Lisa

On 07.03.2014 10:31, Dirk Broenink wrote:
> I had nothing specifically in mind, it seems like a very interesting
> thing to do and I wanted to hear about what others are doing, DIY-style :)
>
> The paper seems good, however I have a lot of trouble understanding it.
> I have to search google for most of the terms and even then the clue is
> lost on me.
>
> On Wednesday, 5 March 2014 20:09:44 UTC+1, Rowan Copley wrote:
>
> Making logic gates out of DNA or RNA is probably the easiest way to
> do this, though there are difficulties in scaling. Here's a good
> paper if you're
> interested: http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~lulu/seesaw_digital_circuits2011_SI.pdf

> <http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~lulu/seesaw_digital_circuits2011_SI.pdf>.

> Or did you have something else in mind?
>
> On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 4:44:37 AM UTC-8, Dirk Broenink wrote:
>
> So, has anyone on here thought about doing some of their own
> biological computing?
>
> I wonder how hard it is to make a simple 'adder element' with a
> plant, or bacteria, or something similar. So that when you
> stimulate it with two certain patterns (representing numbers) in
> a certain specific order or place(s) it results in the correct
> pattern representing the addition of those two numbers.
>

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[Tim Fiori]

I'd love to give this a go and try produce something simple like an adder circuit. I've read through a lot of the papers on the subject but don't know how to get started on a DIY budget!

This approach seems to be the most promising IMO as opposed to the seesaw gates:

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/genomics/2013/GeneticLogic.pdf