Protein molecules travel around the circuit, forced in certain directions in directed ways, a bit like cars and trucks travelling through a city to arrive at desired results. Credit: Till Korten
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which provides energy to all the cells in our bodies may also be able to power the next generation of supercomputers. The discovery opens doors to the creation of biological supercomputers that are about the size of a book. That is what an international team of researchers led by Prof. Nicolau, the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at McGill, believe. It will be able to process information very quickly and accurately using parallel networks in the same way that massive electronic super computers do except it is a whole lot smaller than current supercomputers, uses much less energy, and uses proteins present in all living cells to function.
The circuit the researchers have created looks a bit like a road map of a busy and very organized city as seen from a plane. The “city” is a chip 1.5 cm square in which channels have been etched. Instead of the electrons that are propelled by an electrical charge and move around within a traditional microchip, short strings of proteins (which the researchers call biological agents) travel around the circuit in a controlled way, their movements powered by ATP.
Because it is run by biological agents, and as a result hardly heats up at all, the model bio-supercomputer that the researchers have developed uses far less energy than standard electronic supercomputers do, making it more sustainable. Traditional supercomputers use so much electricity, that they heat up a lot and then need to be cooled down, often requiring their own power plant to function.
Although the model bio supercomputer was able to very efficiently tackle a complex classical mathematical problem by using parallel computing of the kind used by supercomputers, the researchers recognize that there is still a lot of work ahead to move from the model they have created to a full-scale functional computer. “One option for dealing with larger and more complex problems may be to combine our device with a conventional computer to form a hybrid device. Right now we’re working on a variety of ways to push the research further, ” says Nicolau. http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/building-living-breathing-supercomputers-259294
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/02/17/1510825113.full
Recent Comments