The Problem

One Example of DNA Computing

As of now, there are not many well-known examples of DNA computing, partly becuase it is not widespread, and partly because much of it is taking place right now, all over the world, with teams of scientists. However, one experiment, the experiment that started it all, comes to mind readily when the topic DNA computing arises.

This computation, probably the most well-known, was the the first of its kind, not because the remarkability of the problem solved, but becuase of the unorthodox, shockingly-new technique used to solve the problem. This problem was completed in 1994, over a seven-day period by a team of scientists led by Leonard M. Adleman, who later published his results. The problem is a Hamiltonian Path problem - a problem involving paths going though points using certain rules and a general rule that no point can be passed through more than once.

The particular Hamiltonian Path problem that Adleman solved is popularly referred to as a "traveling salesman" problem. A salesman must pass through a number of cities, going through each city exactly once, and using a set of rules governing connections between cities. Adleman himself used seven cities for his experiment, but for simplicity's sake, we will use five for our "example". In our problem, we will have five cities, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and Toledo that are connected as follows: Cincinnati is connected to Dayton and Columbus, Dayton is connected to Toledo and Columbus, Columbus is connected to Toledo and Cleveland, and Cleveland is connected to Columbus and Toledo. Note: when the word "connection" is used here, it describes a one-way connection. For exampele: if Dayton is connected to Columbus, it means that you can only go from Dayton to Columbus, unless it states eleswhere that Columbus is connected to Dayton. Our overall goal is to find a path that our salesman can take to get from Cincinnati to Toledo using the definition of life - DNA.

The actual process that is undertaken to solve the problem is described in the sub-section "Finding Solutions".

Introduction
Are You Really A Computer?
DNA Computing Example
Finding Solutions
The Future