[工程科技]APPLICATION OF BIOMOLECULAR COMPUTING TO MEDICAL SCIENCE A BIOMOLECULAR DATABASE SYSTEM FOR.pdfVIP

3 APPLICATION OF BIOMOLECULAR COMPUTING TO MEDICAL SCIENCE: A BIOMOLECULAR DATABASE SYSTEM FOR STORAGE, PROCESSING, AND RETRIEVAL OF GENETIC INFORMATION AND MATERIAL John H. Reif, Michael Hauser, Michael Pirrung, and Thomas LaBean Departments of Computer Science, Ophthalmology, and Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina A key problem in medical science and genomics is that of the efficient storage, process- ing, and retrieval of genetic information and material. This chapter presents an architec- ture for a Biomolecular Database system that would provide a unique capability in genomics. It completely bypasses the usual transformation from biological material (ge- nomic DNA and transcribed RNA) to digital media, as done in conventional bioinformat- ics. Instead, biotechnology techniques provide the needed capability of a Biomolecular Database system without ever transferring the biological information into digital media. The inputs to the system are DNA obtained from tissues: either genomic DNA, or re- verse-transcript cDNA. The input DNA is then tagged with artificially synthesized DNA strands. These information tags encode essential information (e.g., identification of the DNA donor, as well as the date of the sample, gender, and date of birth) about the indi- vidual or cell type that the DNA was obtained from. The resulting Biomolecular Database is capable of containing a vast store of genomic DNA obtained from many individuals (multiple army divisions, etc.). For example, the DNA of a million individuals requires about 6 pedabits (6 H 1015 bits), but due to the compactne