Communications of the ACM
Synthetic Dna Could Revolutionize Information Processing
"In the future, we plan to develop methods for writing new information into the polymer chains with the long-term aim of developing wholly synthetic information technology, working at the molecular level," says University of Reading professor Howard Colqu
Credit: University of Reading
A synthetic form of DNA developed by University of Reading chemists has the potential to revolutionize the way digital information is processed and stored. The researchers designed and synthesized short sequences of a synthetic information-bearing polymer. Information densities that are several million times greater than current systems could be possible with synthetic polymer systems.
The synthetic form of DNA would depend on tweezer-shaped molecules to pick out information along a polymer chain. Several tweezer molecules would bind next to one another along the chain, and read and translate extended, long-range, polymer-sequence information.
"This type of process is paralleled in the processing of genetic information," says Reading professor Howard Colquhoun. "In the future, we plan to develop methods for writing new information into the polymer chains with the long-term aim of developing wholly synthetic information technology, working at the molecular level."
From University of Reading
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