May, 2010
DNA-based Robots are not yet part of the bag of tools that engineers pull out to solve a problem. Yet,
when you think about it, the smaller the creature, the faster it usually can move. DNA molecules can
move very fast.
and the Synthetic Organism are not techniques that are available to current embedded developers, I
think they point out what type of scale future embedded designs may encompass. In short, the stories
relate to building machines that designers can program to perform specific tasks at the molecular or
cellular level. Before I relate this to this series, let me offer a quick summary about these two
announcements.
The synthetic organism is a synthetic cell that the creators at J. Craig Venter Institute claim is completely
controlled by man-made genetic instructions. The new bacterium is solely a demonstration project that
tests a technique that may be applied to other bacteria to accomplish specific functions, such as
developing microbes that help make gasoline. The bacterium’s genetic code began as a digital
computer file, with more than one million base pairs of DNA, which was sent to Blue Heron Bio, a DNA
sequencing company, where the file was transformed into hundreds of small pieces of chemical DNA.
Yeast and other bacteria were used to assemble the DNA strips into the complete genome, which was
transplanted into an emptied cell. The team claims that the cell can reproduce itself.
There are two types of DNA-based robots that were announced recently. Each is a DNA walker, also
referred to as a molecular spider that move along a flat surface made out of folded DNA, known as DNA
origami, that the walker binds and unbinds with to move around. One of the walkers is able to “follow” a
path, and there is a video of the route the walker took to get from one point to another. The other type
of walker is controlled by single strands of DNA to collect nano-particles.
These two announcements relate to this series both from a size scale perspective and to our current
chapter about energy harvesting. The synthetic organism article does not explicitly discuss how the
bacterium obtains energy from the environment, but the molecular robot article hints at how the robots
harvest energy from the environment.
“The spider is fueled by the chemical interactions its single-stranded DNA "legs" have with the origami
surface. In order to take a "step," the legs first cleave a DNA strand on the surface, weakening its
interaction with that part of the origami surface. This encourages the spider to move forward, pulled
towards the intact surface, where its interactions are stronger. When the spider binds to a part of the
surface that it is unable to cleave, it stops.”
Based on this description, the “programming” is built into the environment and the actual execution of
the program is subject to random variability of the molecular material positioning in the surface.
Additionally, the energy to enable the robot to move is also embedded in the surface material. This
setup is analogous to designing a set of tubes and ruts for water to follow rather than actually
programming the robot to make decisions. When our hypothetical water reaches a gravity minimum, it
will stop, in a similar fashion to the robot. Interestingly though, in the video, the robot does not actually
stop at the end point, it jumps out of the target circle just before the video ends.
Like most new technology, it is not clear how it will be applied in the future.
Index
Next
DNA-based Robots are not yet part of the bag of tools that engineers pull out to solve a problem. Yet,
when you think about it, the smaller the creature, the faster it usually can move. DNA molecules can
move very fast.
and the Synthetic Organism are not techniques that are available to current embedded developers, I
think they point out what type of scale future embedded designs may encompass. In short, the stories
relate to building machines that designers can program to perform specific tasks at the molecular or
cellular level. Before I relate this to this series, let me offer a quick summary about these two
announcements.
The synthetic organism is a synthetic cell that the creators at J. Craig Venter Institute claim is completely
controlled by man-made genetic instructions. The new bacterium is solely a demonstration project that
tests a technique that may be applied to other bacteria to accomplish specific functions, such as
developing microbes that help make gasoline. The bacterium’s genetic code began as a digital
computer file, with more than one million base pairs of DNA, which was sent to Blue Heron Bio, a DNA
sequencing company, where the file was transformed into hundreds of small pieces of chemical DNA.
Yeast and other bacteria were used to assemble the DNA strips into the complete genome, which was
transplanted into an emptied cell. The team claims that the cell can reproduce itself.
There are two types of DNA-based robots that were announced recently. Each is a DNA walker, also
referred to as a molecular spider that move along a flat surface made out of folded DNA, known as DNA
origami, that the walker binds and unbinds with to move around. One of the walkers is able to “follow” a
path, and there is a video of the route the walker took to get from one point to another. The other type
of walker is controlled by single strands of DNA to collect nano-particles.
These two announcements relate to this series both from a size scale perspective and to our current
chapter about energy harvesting. The synthetic organism article does not explicitly discuss how the
bacterium obtains energy from the environment, but the molecular robot article hints at how the robots
harvest energy from the environment.
“The spider is fueled by the chemical interactions its single-stranded DNA "legs" have with the origami
surface. In order to take a "step," the legs first cleave a DNA strand on the surface, weakening its
interaction with that part of the origami surface. This encourages the spider to move forward, pulled
towards the intact surface, where its interactions are stronger. When the spider binds to a part of the
surface that it is unable to cleave, it stops.”
Based on this description, the “programming” is built into the environment and the actual execution of
the program is subject to random variability of the molecular material positioning in the surface.
Additionally, the energy to enable the robot to move is also embedded in the surface material. This
setup is analogous to designing a set of tubes and ruts for water to follow rather than actually
programming the robot to make decisions. When our hypothetical water reaches a gravity minimum, it
will stop, in a similar fashion to the robot. Interestingly though, in the video, the robot does not actually
stop at the end point, it jumps out of the target circle just before the video ends.
Like most new technology, it is not clear how it will be applied in the future.
Index
Next
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