(June 20, 2011) Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration
for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless
scientists and engineers. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech) have now taken a major step toward creating artificial
intelligence—not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The
researchers are the first to have made an artificial neural network out of DNA,
creating a circuit of interacting molecules that can recall memories based on
incomplete patterns, just as a brain can.
"The brain is
incredible," says Lulu Qian, a Caltech senior postdoctoral scholar in
bioengineering and lead author on the paper describing this work, published in
the July 21 issue of the journal Nature. "It allows us to recognize
patterns of events, form memories, make decisions, and take actions. So we
asked, instead of having a physically connected network of neural cells, can a
soup of interacting molecules exhibit brainlike behavior?"