Will computers ever use DNA instead of silicon chips?

No, it won’t happen. Even the people who are working on ways to make DNA perform calculations cannot see it happening. Take Professor Andrew Ellington at the University of Texas at Austin, who said: “I think my general opinion about DNA computing is not ‘no’ but ‘Hell, no’.”

So, how come some people believe that the future of computing lies in the molecule that provides the blueprint for how living creatures are made?

It started in the 1990s when Leonard Adleman, of the University of Southern California, came up with a way to use DNA to solve one of computing’s most difficult and complex tasks: the travelling salesman problem.

This tries to find the most efficient way to visit a set of cities so that you pass through each one as few times as possible – ideally, only once. Adleman worked out that the paths between cities could be coded into DNA.

If a path between two cities matched, those DNA strands would stick to each other. Eventually, lots of strands would match up to produce a list of cities in DNA, packed into a classic double helix. Just shaking up a test tube full of those different DNA strands did the job. It was the ultimate parallel processor.

Will computers ever use DNA instead of silicon chips?.

My grade 10 science project was on DNA computing. I had to make a presentation in front of the class and no one knew what the heck I was talking about! That was about 7 years ago.