I just read a report in New Scientist online magazine entitled "DNA logic gates herald injectable computers". The article discusses work done at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, that has been able to use short strands of DNA and some other molecular machinery to create sequences that behave like logic circuits, for example "exclusive OR". The research team was also able to construct DNA sequences that could add or subtract or deliver a drug treatment.
Doing binary arithmetic in my body isn't of much interest to me. On the other hand, being able to attack cancerous cells or modify the DNA of other bad cells in my body into something useful or, at least, benign, will always catch my attention. And all of those "computations" would be carried out in parallel.
The way my mind works, the first applications of this kind of technology I thought of, in the future, were as weapons. An unobtrusive killing device could be introduced into a person to interfere with the use of some essential amino acid. This could be like restructuring the way the dinosaurs absorb Lysine to keep them contained within Jurassic Park. Frank Herbert's The White Plague was about a human-engineered biological disease that killed only females.
If we can restructure targeted genetic sequences, we could solve and maybe reverse male -pattern baldness. Also, genetic diseases and birth defects would be a thing of the past. On the darker side of things, it would be possible to remove unwanted traits within people (e.g., brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin) or remove people with unwanted traits. Perhaps the most politically charged and controversial human trait is homosexuality. If homosexuality is genetic, could zealots create a "therapy" that would "cure" it? Now, flip the coin: could heterosexuality be "cured" in the same way?
It's quite a leap from being able to construct simple logic gates to wiping out disease or stopping the retreat of my hairline. Still, I foresee great SF stories in all the possibilities opened up by this DNA research.
Doing binary arithmetic in my body isn't of much interest to me. On the other hand, being able to attack cancerous cells or modify the DNA of other bad cells in my body into something useful or, at least, benign, will always catch my attention. And all of those "computations" would be carried out in parallel.
The way my mind works, the first applications of this kind of technology I thought of, in the future, were as weapons. An unobtrusive killing device could be introduced into a person to interfere with the use of some essential amino acid. This could be like restructuring the way the dinosaurs absorb Lysine to keep them contained within Jurassic Park. Frank Herbert's The White Plague was about a human-engineered biological disease that killed only females.
If we can restructure targeted genetic sequences, we could solve and maybe reverse male -pattern baldness. Also, genetic diseases and birth defects would be a thing of the past. On the darker side of things, it would be possible to remove unwanted traits within people (e.g., brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin) or remove people with unwanted traits. Perhaps the most politically charged and controversial human trait is homosexuality. If homosexuality is genetic, could zealots create a "therapy" that would "cure" it? Now, flip the coin: could heterosexuality be "cured" in the same way?
It's quite a leap from being able to construct simple logic gates to wiping out disease or stopping the retreat of my hairline. Still, I foresee great SF stories in all the possibilities opened up by this DNA research.