Synthetic biology sure looks promising, nice post!
Once the code is compiled, the output of the program is a DNA sequence ready to be tested in vivo ? How do you test DNA ?
If it implies cloning it in bacteria, the result would be a peptide unable to do anything in vivo, but to give rise to diseases ? The important part is to model a foldable protein which is extremely hard, then engineer it backwards to DNA which is a no brainier :) would this be solved ? not sure!
The potential for creating diseases is there but is probably the most costly and inefficient route at the moment. The use at the moment of "in vivo" is not life integration but creation of circuits. Bear in mind is a different use case, as this is about hardware not about creating functional proteins for the bacteria.
Think of it as encrypted biological information for the bacteria. It means nothing the them, the peptide could look like biological junk but it can compute. I made a post on protein folding design. That's one of the routes and is getting a lot easier.
For instance, in the case of data storage. You don't need the bacteria to be alive. DNA is relatively resistant as shown by retrieved mamoths DNA if on cold, dry places.
The main use currently is "DNA" chips.
You can't store them properly in a bacteria so to speak as the DNA degrades and introduces errors, so as part of the micro arrays you hibridize and conserve in sillico. One of the current apporaches is, you use the bacteria to produce the parts and ensamble.
Manipulation of DNA in vivo is one of the main ethical concerns, but is quite far away it seems.
Glad you passed by :)
DNA nanotechnology self assembly
Thanks!
Having all the parts, assembling it and making it compute would be something.
Nice post on folding as well.
yeah read about a Japanese(i think) project, aiming at fertilizing a elephant embryo with frozen mammoth sperm like 2 days ago. Imagine 100 generations later with some pygmy genes in the mix and bang, the new mini pig is here! funny u mentioned it.