MAYA-II (

Molecular Array A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...

YES Yes or YES may refer to: * An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no Education * YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US * YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talente ...

and ANDNOT

logic gate A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Depending on the context, the term may refer to an ideal logic gate, ...

s) is a

DNA computer DNA computing is an emerging branch of unconventional computing which uses DNA, biochemistry, and molecular biology hardware, instead of the traditional electronic computing. Research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments, a ...

, based on DNA Stem Loop Controllers, developed by scientists at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

and created in 2006. Replacing the normally

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

-based circuits, this

chip Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific genomi ...

has DNA strands to form the circuit. It is said that the speed of such DNA-circuited computer chips will rival and surpass the silicon-based ones, they will be of use in blood samples and in the body and might partake in single

cell signaling In biology, cell signaling (cell signalling in British English) or cell communication is the ability of a cell to receive, process, and transmit signals with its environment and with itself. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all cellula ...

. It is the successor to the

MAYA I Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

which was composed of only 23 logic gates and could only complete specific games of

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. T ...

. MAYA-II has more than 100 DNA circuits and can now thoroughly play a game of

. It is very slow - one move in a game of tic-tac-toe can take up to 30 minutes making it more of a demonstration than an actual application. The arrangement of this device looks like that of a tic-tac-toe grid and consists of nine wells coated with

culture cell Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

s. The logic gates are made of the E6

Deoxyribozyme Deoxyribozymes, also called DNA enzymes, DNAzymes, or catalytic DNA, are DNA oligonucleotides that are capable of performing a specific chemical reaction, often but not always catalytic. This is similar to the action of other biological enzymes, ...

s (or DNAzyme) which react to specific

oligonucleotide Oligonucleotides are short DNA or RNA molecules, oligomers, that have a wide range of applications in genetic testing, research, and forensics. Commonly made in the laboratory by solid-phase chemical synthesis, these small bits of nucleic acids c ...

input. Upon reaction, the DNAzyme cleaves the substrate producing an increase in red or green

fluorescence Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

, depending on whether it is the computer's or the human's turn respectively. This technology was used to deepen the quality of diagnostics given to patients infected with the

West Nile virus West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes West Nile fever. It is a member of the family ''Flaviviridae'', from the genus ''Flavivirus'', which also contains the Zika virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. The virus ...

. Joanne Macdonald, a Columbia University virologist, hopes this device can be implanted in the human body and control the presence of cancer cells or the levels of insulin for diabetic patients. One of the suggested uses put forward by MAYA's creators is that technology such as this can be used in situations where fluid is involved, such as in a sample of blood or a body, since it does not use traditional silicon components. MAYA-II

References

{{reflist Natural computation