Researchers build a rudimentary DNA-based computer

A team of researchers have demonstrated a proof of principle of all the capabilities needed for a functioning computer—storing, retrieving, processing, erasing, and rewriting data—using nucleic acids. With this primitive computer, the researchers were able to solve simple chess and sudoku problems ( Nat. Nanotechnol. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01771-6 ). Albert Keung , a biomolecular engineer at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the study’s lead investigator, says, “we’re basically taking the same genetic material that’s in you and me, and developing ways to store information and compute information using that material.” Considering that the storage density of DNA is many orders of magnitude higher than that of any manufactured device, this work explores the possibility of creating a new form of computer that can fit all the world’s information in a shoebox, he says. In DNA-based systems, information is stored as the four nucleotide bases that compose nucleic acids, and