Post by Merkuri on Apr 29, 2004 14:16:31 GMT -5
[From Wired News: www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63265,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_12 ]
Tiny Computer Could Fight Cancer
Reuters
01:26 PM Apr. 28, 2004 PT
LONDON -- Scientists have come a step closer to creating a minuscule DNA computer that may one day be able to spot diseases like cancer from inside the body and release a drug to treat it.
Professor Ehud Shapiro and researchers at Israel's Weizmann Institute constructed the world's smallest biomolecular computer a few years ago.
Now they have programmed it to analyze biological information to detect and treat prostate cancer and a form of lung cancer in laboratory experiments.
"We've taken our earlier molecular computer and augmented it with an input and output module. Together the computer can diagnose a disease and in response produce a drug for the disease in a test tube," Shapiro told Reuters.
The microscopic computer is so minuscule a trillion could fit in a drop of water. Its input, output and software are made up of DNA molecules -- which store and process encoded information about living organisms.
"Our work represents the first actual proof of concept and the first actual demonstration of a possible real-life application for this kind of computer," Shapiro added.
The findings, which are published online by the science journal Nature and were presented at a symposium in Brussels, Belgium, could transform how diseases like cancer are treated in the future.
Instead of biopsies to remove cancerous tissue, which then must be analyzed in the laboratory, the DNA computer could potentially diagnose the disease within the tissue in the body.
"Our medical computer might one day be administered as a drug, and be distributed throughout the body by the bloodstream to detect disease markers autonomously and independently in every cell," said Shapiro.
It could enable doctors to treat cancer in its earliest stages before tumors have formed and to deliver drugs to hard-to-reach cells if the disease has spread to other parts of the body.
Different inputs could be used to detect other diseases.
"It could work for any illness for which there is a particular pattern of over-expression or under-expression of genes which is characteristic for the disease," according to Shapiro.
He readily admits that a DNA computer roaming around the body spotting and treating disease is still a long way away.
"There are many, many hurdles. It could take decades," Shapiro said, adding that he and his colleagues had not expected to accomplish this step so quickly.
The double helix molecule of DNA that contains human genes stores data on four chemical bases -- known by the letters A, T, C and G -- giving it massive memory capability.
Shapiro's DNA computer is a molecular model of one of the simplest computing machines -- the automaton, which can answer certain yes or no questions.
It uses enzymes, which manipulate DNA, as the computer's hardware. The computer is preprogrammed with medical information and detects markers, or concentrations of certain molecules of RNA (a cousin of DNA), which are overproduced or underproduced to detect the cancer.
If the markers signify a disease, the output releases a molecule similar to an anti-cancer drug to destroy the cancerous cells.
Leonard Adleman, of the University of Southern California, pioneered the field of DNA computers a decade ago by using DNA in a test tube to solve a mathematical problem.
Tiny Computer Could Fight Cancer
Reuters
01:26 PM Apr. 28, 2004 PT
LONDON -- Scientists have come a step closer to creating a minuscule DNA computer that may one day be able to spot diseases like cancer from inside the body and release a drug to treat it.
Professor Ehud Shapiro and researchers at Israel's Weizmann Institute constructed the world's smallest biomolecular computer a few years ago.
Now they have programmed it to analyze biological information to detect and treat prostate cancer and a form of lung cancer in laboratory experiments.
"We've taken our earlier molecular computer and augmented it with an input and output module. Together the computer can diagnose a disease and in response produce a drug for the disease in a test tube," Shapiro told Reuters.
The microscopic computer is so minuscule a trillion could fit in a drop of water. Its input, output and software are made up of DNA molecules -- which store and process encoded information about living organisms.
"Our work represents the first actual proof of concept and the first actual demonstration of a possible real-life application for this kind of computer," Shapiro added.
The findings, which are published online by the science journal Nature and were presented at a symposium in Brussels, Belgium, could transform how diseases like cancer are treated in the future.
Instead of biopsies to remove cancerous tissue, which then must be analyzed in the laboratory, the DNA computer could potentially diagnose the disease within the tissue in the body.
"Our medical computer might one day be administered as a drug, and be distributed throughout the body by the bloodstream to detect disease markers autonomously and independently in every cell," said Shapiro.
It could enable doctors to treat cancer in its earliest stages before tumors have formed and to deliver drugs to hard-to-reach cells if the disease has spread to other parts of the body.
Different inputs could be used to detect other diseases.
"It could work for any illness for which there is a particular pattern of over-expression or under-expression of genes which is characteristic for the disease," according to Shapiro.
He readily admits that a DNA computer roaming around the body spotting and treating disease is still a long way away.
"There are many, many hurdles. It could take decades," Shapiro said, adding that he and his colleagues had not expected to accomplish this step so quickly.
The double helix molecule of DNA that contains human genes stores data on four chemical bases -- known by the letters A, T, C and G -- giving it massive memory capability.
Shapiro's DNA computer is a molecular model of one of the simplest computing machines -- the automaton, which can answer certain yes or no questions.
It uses enzymes, which manipulate DNA, as the computer's hardware. The computer is preprogrammed with medical information and detects markers, or concentrations of certain molecules of RNA (a cousin of DNA), which are overproduced or underproduced to detect the cancer.
If the markers signify a disease, the output releases a molecule similar to an anti-cancer drug to destroy the cancerous cells.
Leonard Adleman, of the University of Southern California, pioneered the field of DNA computers a decade ago by using DNA in a test tube to solve a mathematical problem.
