The boffins in Palo Alto want to build computers out of living tissue, and to that end they've created a biological transistor, called the transcriptor.

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Of course, they haven't built a living genetic PC just yet, but to speed up its development, the team has contributed all the transcriptor-based logic gates to the public domain.

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Transcriptors substitute DNA for semiconductors and RNA for the electrons in traditional transistors -- essentially, the transcriptor controls the flow of a specific RNA protein along a DNA strand using tailored combinations of enzymes.

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