Biological Information Technology & Systems - BITS: Epigenetic Computers: An in vitro, in abstractio, and in silico Study

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

EIA-0130822 Boahen, Kwabena Univ. of Pennsylvania BITS: Epigenetic Computers: An in vitro, in abstractio, and in silico study Ultimately, nanotechnology will enable us to design programmable information processors (computers) from the ground up, growing them from molecules. The brain is built in this fashion through the power of epigenesis multicellular differentiation triggered by environmental signals. Despite impressive progress in our understanding of this process (Sanes, Reh et al. 2000), no one has attempted to design a computer that learns by growing based on insights from neurobiology. Using information derived from in vitro and in abstractio studies of diffusible neurotrophic factor mediated neuronal pathfinding (growth-cone chemotaxis) and synaptogenesis, we will develop a self-configurable computer that reprograms itself at the level of individual connections by merging custom, very large scale integration, in silico microtechnology with growing virtual wires. With the insights gained in this project, we will be poised to take advantage of real anatomical plasticity made possible by rapid progress in nanotechnology.