Programming human cells to follow sets of logical instructions
Bob Yirka
Cutting DNA and sewing it back together allows for programming cells because DNA controls which proteins a cell makes. By cutting and sewing in a certain way, the researchers were able to induce a human kidney cell to produce a fluorescent protein which caused the cell to light up under desired conditions. Another possibility is using the technique to program stem cells to grow into desired tissue. Large-scale design of robust genetic circuits with multiple inputs and outputs for mammalian cells, Nature Biotechnology (2017). We present a robust, general, scalable system, called ‘Boolean logic and arithmetic through DNA excision’ (BLADE), to engineer genetic circuits with multiple inputs and outputs in mammalian cells with minimal optimization.