The evolution of DNA computing: nature's solution to a path problem

Abstract

How do cells and nature "compute"? They read and "rewrite" DNA all the time, by processes that modify sequence at the DNA or RNA level. Adleman (1994) reported an elegant solution to a seven city directed Hamiltonian path problem using DNA. This launched the new field of DNA computers, which in four years has become an international focus. However, unknown to Adleman and this field, two ciliated protozoans of the genus Oxytricha had solved an even harder problem using DNA several million years earlier. In general, the processes of gene unscrambling and editing present two of nature's ingenious solutions to the problem of gene assembly.