wired | Cells are basically tiny
computers: They send and receive inputs and output accordingly. If you
chug a Frappuccino, your blood sugar spikes, and your pancreatic cells
get the message. Output: more insulin.
But cellular computing is more than just a convenient metaphor. In
the last couple of decades, biologists have been working to hack the
cells’ algorithm in an effort to control their processes. They’ve
upended nature’s role as life’s software engineer, incrementally editing
a cell’s algorithm—its DNA—over generations. In a paper published today
in Nature Biotechnology,
researchers programmed human cells to obey 109 different sets of
logical instructions. With further development, this could lead to cells
capable of responding to specific directions or environmental cues in
order to fight disease or manufacture important chemicals.
Their cells execute these instructions by using proteins called DNA
recombinases, which cut, reshuffle, or fuse segments of DNA. These
proteins recognize and target specific positions on a DNA strand—and the
researchers figured out how to trigger their activity. Depending on
whether the recombinase gets triggered, the cell may or may not produce
the protein encoded in the DNA segment.
A cell could be programmed, for example, with a so-called NOT logic
gate. This is one of the simplest logic instructions: Do NOT do
something whenever you receive the trigger. This study’s authors used
this function to create cells that light up on command. Biologist Wilson Wong of Boston University, who led the research, refers to these engineered cells as “genetic circuits.”
