{"id":137392,"date":"2022-03-26T21:05:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T04:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/revamped-design-could-take-powerful-biological-computers-from-the-test-tube-to-the-cell"},"modified":"2022-03-26T21:05:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T04:05:07","slug":"revamped-design-could-take-powerful-biological-computers-from-the-test-tube-to-the-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/revamped-design-could-take-powerful-biological-computers-from-the-test-tube-to-the-cell","title":{"rendered":"Revamped design could take powerful biological computers from the test tube to the cell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/revamped-design-could-take-powerful-biological-computers-from-the-test-tube-to-the-cell3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tiny biological computers made of DNA could revolutionize the way we diagnose and treat a slew of diseases, once the technology is fully fleshed out. However, a major stumbling block for these DNA-based devices, which can operate in both cells and liquid solutions, has been how short-lived they are. Just one use and the computers are spent.<\/p>\n<p>Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have developed long-lived biological computers that could potentially persist inside <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cells<\/a>. In a paper published in the journal <i>Science Advances<\/i>, the authors forgo the traditional DNA-based approach, opting instead to use the nucleic acid RNA to build computers. The results demonstrate that the RNA circuits are as dependable and versatile as their DNA-based counterparts. What\u2019s more, living cells may be able to create these RNA circuits continuously, something that is not readily possible with DNA circuits, further positioning RNA as a promising candidate for powerful, long-lasting biological computers.<\/p>\n<p>Much like the computer or smart device you are likely reading this on, biological computers can be programmed to carry out different kinds of tasks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tiny biological computers made of DNA could revolutionize the way we diagnose and treat a slew of diseases, once the technology is fully fleshed out. However, a major stumbling block for these DNA-based devices, which can operate in both cells and liquid solutions, has been how short-lived they are. Just one use and the computers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}