In this seminar, we will study the theoretical foundations of natural computing, with a focus on computation at the molecular and biological levels.

Biomolecular computing utilises biochemical processes to perform computational tasks. Instead of classic silicon-based digital computers, biomolecular computing systems are based on interactions between various "molecular devices" that range from nanoscale molecules (e.g. DNA or proteins) to single-cell organisms (e.g., engineered bacteria and eukaryotes).

These systems can be viewed as highly parallel, but computationally extremely constrained, distributed systems. During this seminar, we overview foundational questions related to the computational power of biomolecular computing models, ranging from chemical reaction networks and population protocols to DNA self-assembly and active matter models.

Semester: WiSe 2023/24