An international group of scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has published a paper titled ‘Long-range charge transport in single G-quadruplex DNA molecules’ in Nature Nanotechnology announcing their recent breakthrough towards developing DNA-based electrical circuits.
Until now, scientists have been unable to use molecules as building blocks to produce electrical circuits. “Now scientists report reproducible and quantitative measurements of electricity flow through long molecules made of four DNA strands, signaling a significant breakthrough towards the development of DNA-based electrical circuits,” scientists report.
Scientists have reduced the size of computers and their components over the years but have not been successful in reducing the distance between transistors, which are the main elements in computers. Reducing this space is expensive and shows why it has not been accomplished until now. Molecular electronics are the solution to minimizing the space between transistors.
“This research paves the way for implementing DNA-based programmable circuits for molecular electronics, a new generation of computer circuits that can be more sophisticated, cheaper and simpler to make,” professor Danny Porath of the Hebrew University said.
