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The approach is very elegant. DNA is uniquely good at manufacturing molecules. Some of the proteins the nature can make are amazing. So if you want to assemble
by venomsnake 13y ago
The approach is very elegant. DNA is uniquely good at manufacturing molecules. Some of the proteins the nature can make are amazing. So if you want to assemble something on the molecular scale this is probably the way to go.
- jonmrodriguez 13y agoProteins are manufactured by ribosomes, not by DNA itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome What you said is like saying "software is very good at welding auto parts", when in fact, it is industrial robots that can weld, but a paper printout of the control code would not be capable of welding! -- Although DNA cannot be used for biomanufacturing in the way you describe, if you want a different but still interesting example of DNA being used for mechanical purposes, you could look at DNA origami: http://cadnano.org/gallery http://cadnano.org/gallery DNA origami takes advantage of DNA's ability to self-assemble fairly predictably into 3D shapes based on the designer specifying 1D sequences of letters, which bind to each other with certain propensities.
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoStrangely, they didn't use the role of DNA in manufacturing molecules. They had DNA-manipulation techiniques handy; they used them to lay out doped DNA, then essentially burn it to leave graphene sheets.
- venomsnake 13y agoYeah I know that. But I was thinking a few steps forward. To be able to make a bunch of cells manufacture a whole logical block and then just burn them to get the graphene.