DNA programming - (Apr/27/2002 )

Dear biologists:
   I'm sorry to boring you, but I have some idea----maybe merely childish imagination, yet I want to tell you.
   I'm a college student,my major is digital signals and system's processing and programming, meantime I have great interest in gene's research and application. I've browsed dozens of books on this subject, they all explain based on chemistry and results of experiments.But I think, since genes is programs written with the "Machine language" of "Command system to being"(compare with computer command system), why can't it  has its assembly,C,Pascal... and other advanced languages? If this command system has understood, maybe by programming on it we can deal with kinds of bio-problems. For example, decompile the genes of HIV virus, translate into languages that can be accept by computers and human, then write down programs to deal with them---- just like CIH killing program, at last compile it into DNA/RNA code segment,input into human's body.
   If this is possible, it will obviously be a fast,high effect,perfect method,at once we can eliminate problems such as AIDS and cancer(No matter how powerful a computer virus be, people can kill it no more than a month, I think bio viurs should be the same),in the other hand, I and my classmates will have more exciting work to do----This connect would surely a classcical one.
   Waiting for your respance,thanks!
   I'm sorry for my poor English.

hello ciney
i am so interested to about dna programming
can we get to know each other more
chat4gad@hotmail.com

nice idea, but as always with metaphors or analogies, they just go that far....

you can't really compare the genetic code with a programming language, and another thing is, you can't change the system biological viruses run on, while software, firmware or hardware updates can be done (more or less) easily in "computer life" . As in computer sciences itself, the problem most of the time is the "wetware"......

mike

Hi

Another problem with this proposal is that the systems are not yet fully understood, i.e. we don't know for real all the effects of a particular protein or gene sequence and what would happen if you altered it.

Also too, dissemination of such information ("cures") to all the carriers of a particular disease would be problematic as viruses such as HIV mutate at huge rates (such that each person who has the disease has a strain that is unique to them, and can change in a matter of days), hence possibly rendering the solution that has been provided, inadequate.

Still, nice idea, maybe it will be feasible in the future when biological systems and methods are better understood.