Editors: | F. Kongoli, M.P. Brzezinska, M.A. Alario-Franco, F. Marquis, M.S. Noufal, E.Palomares, J.M. Poblet, D.M. Guldi, A.A. Popov, A.R. Puente Santiago, B. Raveau, D. G. Rodriguez, S. Stevenson, T. Torres, A. Tressaud, M. de Campos |
Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
Publication Year: | 2023 |
Pages: | 166 pages |
ISBN: | 978-1-989820-78-0 (CD) |
ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
The possible utilization of biological nano-logic circuits in the integration and regulation of DNA repair, and their potential use by cells in rapid sub-second decision making and calculations are discussed. Given advantages of logic type control, one would expect that if it hadn't arisen the during the initial abiotic phase of evolution, then it would have arisen to control at least some biological processes over the next approximately 3 billion years of evolution, where single celled life was likely the only form of life on Earth. Several of the required components have been identified in cells, such as biological concentration oscillations, which behave as an analogue of the square wave time base in electronic sequential digital circuits, and at least one phosphologic gate. Globular protein logic gates would be ~10% of the size, in terms of their linear dimensions (1/1000th of the volume), of their smallest current electronic counterparts. The study of the control of cellular data processing pathways will reveal the relative importance of analog versus digital control. These future studies will likely give rise to the tools necessary to therapeutically exploit this information.