Researchers Create Software for Designing Genetic Circuits

Creating your own genetic circuits may sound like science fiction, but that’s what they said about the sun being the center of the galaxy. Researchers the University of California, San Francisco, along with the company Life Technologies, are working together to create the first software that would let bioengineers (and mad-scientists) design complete genetic circuits.

Technology Review has a video and the scoop on the latest in building pathways that cells use to run a task. Basically, genes, proteins and other molecules would use these pathways to do things like turn sugar into fuel or make a certain drug for pharmaceuticals. Voigt and his team say that with their software, designing a microbe for a particular task will be like writing a new computer program (DNA++?). Be sure to give the full story a read.

That’s great and all, but I think I’ll have to wait a couple more years for the smartphone version (ahem).

[Technology Review]

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