Running DNA Like a Computer Could Help You Fight Viruses One Day

Don't take this the wrong way, but you're just data. Genes built you, from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head. In that sense, you're not unlike a computer: Code produces the output that is your body. In fact, for the past two decades, scientists have used actual DNA as if it were literal code, a process called DNA computing, to do things like calculating square roots. Today, researchers report in the journal Nature Communications that they've deployed DNA to detect antibodies--soldiers your body produces to fight viruses and such--by running a sequence of molecular instructions.