Robots Need DNA Too

by Kim Bellard, April 22, 2019 

DNA, it seems, never ceases to amaze. Now scientists are using it to create new kinds of "lifelike" mechanisms.   Pandora, we may have found your box. 

Researchers from Cornell recently reported on their advances.  They used something called DASH -- DNA-based Assembly and Synthesis of Hierarchical -- to create "a DNA material with capabilities of metabolism, in addition to self-assembly and organization – three key traits of life."

That sends chills up my spine, and not necessarily in a good way. 

Lead author Shogo Hamada elaborated:

The designs are still primitive, but they showed a new route to create dynamic machines from biomolecules. We are at a first step of building lifelike robots by artificial metabolism.  Even from a simple design, we were able to create sophisticated behaviors like racing. Artificial metabolism could open a new frontier in robotics.

The reference to racing in his quote refers to the fact their mechanisms were capable to motion -- likened to how slime mold moves -- and they literally had their "lifelike materials" racing each other.  If I'm reading the research paper correctly, the mechanisms were even capable of hindering their competitor."

Well, that's lifelike, all right.

It wasn't all days at the race track; oh-by-the-way, they also demonstrated its potential for pathogen detection, which sounds like it could prove pretty useful.

These mechanisms eat, grow, move, replicate, evolve,and die.  Dr. Luo says: "More excitingly, the use of DNA gives the whole system a self-evolutionary possibility.  That is huge."  Dr. Hamada adds: "Ultimately, the system may lead to lifelike self-reproducing machines."

Those chills are back.

There has been a lot of attention on engineering advances that will allow for nanobots, including uses with our bodies and so-called "soft robots," but we should be given equal attention to what is called synthetic biology.

Synthetic biology isn't necessarily or even predominately about creating new kinds of biology, as the researchers at Cornell are doing, but reprogramming existing forms of life. They're being programmed to eat CO2 (thus helping with global warming), help with recycling, get rid of toxic wastes, even make medicines. 

A Columbia researcher believes that new techniques for programming bacteria, for example, "will help us personalize medical treatments by creating a patient’s cancer in a dish, and rapidly identify the best therapy for the specific individual."

In the not-too-distant future, we're going to be programming lifeforms and "lifelike materials" to do our bidding at the molecular or cellular level.  We've been debating and worrying about when A.I. might become truly intelligent, even self-aware, but the Cornell research is giving us something equally profound to debate: how to draw the line between "life" and "things"?

Medicine, healthcare, and health are going to have to develop more 21st century versions.  What we've been doing will look like brute force, human-centric approaches.  Synthetic biology and molecular engineering open up new and exciting possibilities, and some of those possibilities will upend the status quo in healthcare in ways we can barely even imagine now.  

It's not going to be enough to think of new approaches.  We're going to have to find new ways to even think about those new approaches.  
  
In the meantime, let's go watch some DASH dashes!

This post is an abridged version of the posting in Kim Bellard’s blogsite. Click here to read the full posting.