Human Cells Get Tiny Computers

Reuters
3:35 p.m. 5.Jan.2000 PST

LONDON -- Tiny biological "computers" could one day be built inside every cell in the human body to work as microscopic doctors, according to an Israeli scientist.

The theory, drawn up by Ehud Shapiro, a mathematician and computer scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, was published in Wednesday's issue of New Scientist magazine.

It follows the principles of the "Universal Turing Machine" -- a mathematical device conceived by British scientist Alan Turing in 1936 and one of the foundations of modern computer science.

Turing's machine was never built -- he dreamed it up as an abstract tool for solving complex mathematical problems -- but the basic idea was that the device could "read" a mathematical problem, performing a specific action in response to each line of mathematical reasoning.

Shapiro believes simple molecular building blocks such as amino acids could mimic the workings of a Turing machine by "reading" the chemical program contained in the make-up of specific molecules and computing an "answer" in the form of another molecule.

He says this is similar to the way living cells already use the information contained in DNA to generate proteins.

"Between 20 and 50 years from now we should know how to program cells to build these devices themselves, just as cells now create their own natural components," Shapiro told New Scientist.

His vision is that such molecular computers could monitor the biological conditions in cells and prescribe specific drug molecules in response to problems.

The cells could also emit alarm signals in the form of colored urine if they were unable to treat the condition, Shapiro said.

"It's all theoretically possible," he said. But the magazine said the scientific community remained divided on whether it could ever become a reality.

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