California Institute of Technology researchers have reported the design and experimental implementation of DNA-based digital logic circuits.

They demonstrated AND, OR, and NOT gates, signal restoration, amplification, feedback, and cascading. The modular gates use single-stranded nucleic acids as inputs and outputs, and the mechanism relies exclusively on sequence recognition and strand displacement.

Biological nucleic acids such as microRNAs can serve as inputs, suggesting applications in biotechnology and bioengineering.

Source: Science 8 December 2006: Vol. 314. no. 5805, pp. 1585 – 1588