The Tall Thin Molecular Programmer

Solid-state electronic circuits have grown at an astounding rate since the invention of the transistor in 1947, with transistor counts roughly doubling every two years and now exceeding 100 billion on a single chip. One reason this was possible is that computers are an information technology, which permits engineering methods that manage the inherent complexity. Biology establishes that chemistry also is an information technology: all biomolecules are produced according to instructions encoded in DNA, and the resulting biochemical algorithms guide the self-organization of each organism. The potential design space of chemical systems includes all of biology as well as other forms of information-based chemistry that have yet to be explored. Will the engineering of information-based chemical systems follow in the footsteps of information-based electronic systems, with the design complexity increasing exponentially for decades? What lessons do the early years of the computer revolution offer to this field, especially with respect to how systematic design can help master often bewildering complexity? Now having accumulated a 40-year history, DNA nanotechnology provides a case study for these questions.