Get ready for DNA-based computer chips!

Zee Media Bureau

California: Soon, the building blocks of our life, DNA will help engineers to develop faster and cheaper magnetic chips of computers.

Researchers presented this incredible work at the national meeting and exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in San Diego, California, on Sunday.

Adam T Woolley, professor of chemistry at Brigham Young University (BYU) said that they are planning to use DNA's small size and base-pairing capabilities and ability to self-assemble, and direct it to make nanoscale structures that could be used for electronics.

"The problem, however, is that DNA does not conduct electricity very well. So we use the DNA as a scaffold and then assemble other materials on the DNA to form electronics,” Woolley added.

He further explains that the smallest feature on chips currently used by electronic manufacturers are 14 nanometer wide which is 10 times larger than the diameter of single-stranded DNA. This gives a lot of scope to use this genetic material for smaller-scale chips in near future.

In order to design computer chips similar in function to those that Silicon Valley churns out, Professor Wooley is working in collaboration with Robert C Davis and John N Harb on this project.