{credit}Nature 548, 117–121 (03 August 2017) {/credit}
As my recent Technology Feature made clear, the technology to synthesize large genomes is advancing at a remarkable pace. So too are technologies for wiring genetic circuits to endow those genomes with novel properties. In the 3 August issue of Nature, researchers at Arizona State University in Tempe describe a new technology to do just that.
Synthetic biologist Alexander Green of the Biodesign Institute at ASU, and colleagues, describe simple ‘ribocomputing devices‘ that can function as logical AND, OR, and NOT gates — circuit building blocks that control the translation of a reporter gene based on the presence one or more small input RNAs. As those inputs can reflect exposure to different environmental agents or stimuli, the system could serve as a kind of biological sensor.