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Bioengineers from the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) in the US created a programming language that lets you quickly create a comprehensive, written code in the DNA chain, giving a new function to living cells, according to the website of the University. The report will be published today in the journal Science.
Using this language, anyone can write a program to obtain the necessary cell functions, such as detection and response to certain environmental conditions. Then you can generate a DNA sequence that will provide the desired result.
– It is literally a programming language for bacteria, says Professor of bioengineering at MIT Christopher Voigt. – You can use text language in the same way as you program the computer. After that, the text is compiled and is transformed into a DNA sequence that is placed in the cage and work inside it.
Voight and his colleagues at Boston University and the National Institute of standards and technology have used this language to build a circuit that can detect up to three options the incoming data and react to them differently. Future applications for this type of program include design bacterial cells that can produce a cure for cancer, when they discovered a tumor, or the creation of yeast cells that can stop the fermentation process, if this releases too many toxic byproducts.
Users with a new programming language is not required any special knowledge about genetic engineering.
– You can be a student, to go on a special web server and print the program you want, and the machine will give back a sequence of DNA, says Christopher Voigt.
The language for programming cells based on the Verilog language used for programming computer chips. To create a language version for cells, researchers have developed computing elements such as logic elements and sensors that can be encoded in the DNA of bacterial cells. Sensors capable of detecting various compounds such as oxygen or glucose, as well as react to light, temperature, acidity and other environmental conditions.
