Finding the Switches to Our Cells’ ‘Computer’
Via nsf.gov
What do you and your favorite electronic gadgets have in common? According to new research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, more than you’d think.
If you could look inside the computer chips that power your computer or iPod, you’d find arrays of transistors made up of tiny switches. Each switch can be turned on or off and be in a ‘one’ or a ‘zero’ state. This complex system of switches allows electronic devices to hold data in their memories and complete the jobs we want them to do.
It turns out the cells in our bodies also depend on switches, comprised of different chemical reactions that can be switched on or off, to store information and perform their vital functions. Until recently, however, finding these switches has been difficult, and scientists were only able to identify a handful of them.
That was until Naren Ramakrishnan, a professor of computer science at Virginia Tech, and Upinder S. Bhalla at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in India tried a new approach by looking at cells from the standpoint of an electrical engineer.
“A biochemical switch is a basic memory unit,” Ramakrishnan said. “We wanted to try to understand the cellular basis of memory and to see exactly how cells make their decisions.”
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