MAYA-II ( Molecular Array of

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 * Young Eisner Scholars, in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Appalachia, US * Young Ep ...

and ANDNOT

logic gate A logic gate is a device that performs 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, one that has, for ...

s) is a DNA computer, based on DNA Stem Loop Controllers, developed by scientists at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

and created in 2006. Replacing the normally

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

-based circuits, this chip has DNA strands to form the circuit. It is said that the speed of such

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

-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) is the Biological process, process by which a Cell (biology), cell interacts with itself, other cells, and the environment. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all Cell (biol ...

. It is the successor to the MAYA I 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 (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian English, Canadian or Hiberno-English, Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who ta ...

. 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 cells. 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 ...

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, Recombinant DNA, research, and Forensic DNA, forensics. Commonly made in the laboratory by Oligonucleotide synthesis, solid-phase ...

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

fluorescence Fluorescence is one of two kinds of photoluminescence, the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. When exposed to ultraviolet radiation, many substances will glow (fluoresce) with colore ...

, 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