Sunday 15 November 2015

Biocomputing: Emergence of DNA Computing


Biocomputing is an interdisciplinary research which is a mixed methodology based on  both biology and computer science aspects. DNA computing is a trending concept which is more generally known as Molecular computing.DNA computing received relevant diligence in 1994, When Dr. Leonard  M. Adleman of the University of South California solved the complex computational problem of mathematics using Computational properties of DNA.This pioneer work initiated researchers to exploit the computational properties of DNA[1].

DNA Steganography was firstly accomplished by Crater Bancroft by applying  DNA Steganography in a piece of celebrated information of the Second World War and retrieved successfully[2].The main idea of computing with DNA is to encode data in a DNA strand form in order to simulate arithmetical and logical operations. The main operation of DNA computing is called Synthesis, which is a process of designing and restructuring information in DNA sequence form. In DNA computing, designing and synthesizing information in the DNA sequence form is an important process where wrong design might lead to wrong result.

DNA Certification even though not a DNA computing technique has some practical applications for security. In the Sydney Olympic Games, summer of 2000 a Canadian company named DNA Technologies was able to show case its DNA tagging abilities by performing product certification using DNA sequence[3].

We all know DNA as Magical code for life but how to exploit this magical code for computations and mathematical calculations is an interesting area which shows DNA as a medium to store and share secrets and  how it is really a magical code for cryptographers ?We will see in next post.

References

1. Adleman, Leonard M. "Molecular computation of solutions to combinatorial problems",Science-AAAS-Weekly Paper Edition 266.5187, vol., no 266, pp 1021-1023, Nov. 1994.
2. Clelland, Catherine Taylor, Viviana Risca, and Carter Bancroft. "Hiding messages in DNA microdots", Nature 399.6736 ,pp 533-534, June 1999.

3.Sreeja, C.S.; Misbahuddin, M.; Mohammed Hashim, N.P., "DNA for information security: A Survey on DNA  computing and a pseudo DNA method based on central dogma of molecular biology," in Computer and Communications Technologies (ICCCT), 2014 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1-6, 11-13 Dec. 2014.

Sunday 24 May 2015

DNA:Magical code for Life

DNA : Magical code  for Life


Cell is the basic unit of life and DNA is the genetic blue print of all living cells.Deoxyribonucleic acid is the ultimate repository of potentially meaningful information in the cell.DNA is a germ plasm of all life styles.

DNA was first identified and isolated in 1869 by Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher and he named it as "nuclein "as it was first identified in nuclei of human white blood cells. The term "nuclein " was later changed to nucleic acid  which eventually changed to DNA(Deoxyribonucleic acid  )[1].



Friedrich Miescher[2]


In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick marked a milestone in the history of science by discovery of double helical structure(the twisted ladder structure) of DNA using experimental data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. 




    James Watson        Francis Crick          Maurice Wilkins     Rosalind Franklin[3]  

DNA is a double stranded helix of nucleotides. It is a kind of biological macromolecule made up of nucleotides. DNA is a long polymer. The monomer units of  DNA are nucleotides, and the polymer is known as a "polynucleotide”. Each nucleotide consists of three components

• A Nitrogenous Base
• A five carbon sugar
• A phosphate group




DNA :Helical Structure[5]

Purines and pyrimidines

There are four different types of nucleotides found in DNA,differing only in the nitrogenous base.  Each nucleotide containing one of four bases A, G, C, T.
  • A stands for adenine, 
  • G for guanine, 
  • C for cytosine and 
  • T for thymine

Adenine and guanine are known as Purines, thymine and cytosine are known as pyrimidines.

Chargaff's rule

Chargaff's rule states that total number of  Purines in a DNA molecule is equal to total number of pyrimidines.


Structure of DNA base pairs[6]


The decoding  of DNA was considered as pearl of  the science. It  was a blessing in the field of medical sciences but  during that period the scientific community has never imagined the possibilities of computations using DNA  which is a trend now - "Biocomputing ".

  





References
1.       http://www.nature.com/scitable/nated/topicpage/discovery-of-dna-structure-and-function-watson-397.
2.       http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/images/befo-miescher.jpg.
3.       http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/dna_checklist
4.       http://coloringpagesjos.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/299555-dna-strand.jpg
5.       http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/biochemistry/deoxyribonucleic-acid.html
6.       http://www.dnaftb.org/15/bio.html