Chapter 2: Molecular Recognition - Storage and Processing of Molecular Information


Tanya Sienko, Jean-Marie Lehn

Overview

Underlying every single computing system is a physical base, whether it is of semiconductor material or more complicated organic chemicals. Much of the interest expressed in molecular computing is because from one viewpoint, one is attempting to reverse the demarcation of computing into "hardware" and "software" by using the physical characteristics of the medium to carry out information processing in a desired manner. In these new systems under consideration, one cannot make a distinction between hardware and software.

"Programmability" as it is presently considered will not be taken as a given—one will have to think of "evolution", "adaptability", and "informed materials" instead. The "information" of such systems will lie in chemical and supramolecular attributes and behavior. What one gains by this is the potential ability of implementing "recognition", self-organization, and other "high-level" behaviors extremely difficult to perform according to conventional computing paradigms. Biological organisms carry out amazing feats from an information processing viewpoint. Highly specific recognition and regulation processes that occur in biology include substrate binding to a receptor protein; enzymatic reactions; assembling of multiprotein complexes; immunological antigen-antibody association; intermolecular reading, translation, and transcription of the genetic code; regulation of gene expression by NDA binding proteins; the entry of a virus into a cell; signal transduction by neurotransmitters; and cellular recognition—just to name a few.

All of this relies on what happens down at the very lowest level, the level of the molecules and of their supramolecular interactions. The basic process by which information stored in molecules is processed through their supramolecular interaction algorithms is known as molecular recognition. It is the topic of this chapter.




Molecular Computing
Molecular Computing
ISBN: 0262693313
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 94

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