October 16th, 1997
4:15pm
refreshments at 4:00pm
NE43 - 8th Floor Playroom
Digital control of biological processes promises novel engineering capabilities in manufacturing and control. In this talk I will describe a plausible mechanism for constructing digital logic gates within living cells. These mechanisms rely largely on co-opting existing biochemical machinery and binding proteins found naturally within the cell, replacing difficult protein engineering problems with more tractable engineering of novel combinations of gene control sequences and protein coding sequences.
The resulting logic technology, while slow, allows us to engineer the chemical behavior of cells for use as sensors and effectors. One potential application of such technologies is the precise control of fabrication processes at the molecular level.