Gene power: An artist's rendering of a complex RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecule. RNA has a broad range of functions within a cell.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller/U.S. National Science Foundation
"I wouldn't be surprised if RNA-based gene expression engineering becomes the first cellular bioengineering field to look like other engineering fields with a computer aided design and manufacture system in place," said Arkin, who was not involved in the study.
This new RNA computer is exciting, Arkin said, because it could work in almost any organism and doesn't rely on other chemical factors within the cell, which is rare for this kind of genetic technology.
Biotechnology century
"These circuits could control the synthesis of commodity chemical or pharmaceuticals or could even aid microbes in fixing nitrogen for plants or acting as therapy for humans," he added.
Farren Isaacs, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that the study is further evidence that we are sitting at the cusp of the "biotechnology century."
Commenting on the implications of the technology, he said: "we are confronting a different, and potentially more exciting, set of revolutions that should address some of the challenges crippling our global environment, economies, public health and political unrest rooted in advances in biotechnology."
