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Updated: Sep 20, 2025

DNA-Tethered RNA Polymerase for Programmable In vitro Transcription and Molecular Computation
Published on: December 29, 2021
Molecular mechanisms of encoding and decoding information in cell computing
1Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08855, USA.
Abstract:
The process of computing may be defined simply as the goal-directed selection process (GDSP) that selects m out of n possible choices to achieve some desired goals, thereby generating or utilizing the amount of Shannon information, I, that can be approximated as I = - log2 (m/n) bits. There are at least 3 distinct kinds of the physicochemical systems that can execute GDSP; (i) enzymes (i.e., microscopic or molecular computers), (ii) living cells (as mesoscopic computers), and (iii) brains (as macroscopic computers). In order to help define the principles and mechanisms underlying cell computing, it was thought necessary to compare cell computers with molecular computers (e.g., enzymes) on the one hand and with the macroscopic computers (e.g., Turing machine) on the other. It was concluded that all these different kinds of computers are ultimately driven by the information-energy particle called gnergons, consistent with the Gnergy Principle of Organization formulated by the present auditor in 2018. Also, it was concluded that to delineate how cells compute supported by enzymes necessitated treating enzymes not only as particles but also as standing waves, thus leading to the postulate of the wave-particle duality of enzymes formulated in this paper for the first time, in analogy to the wave-particle duality of light formulated in physics about 100 years ago.
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