Injectable Medibots: Programmable DNA could diagnose and treat cancer

Scientists have created a miniature medical computer out of DNA that can detect cancer genes in a test tube and respond by releasing a drug. Proving what had been only a concept, the feat offers a vision of how medicine might look in the future.

A few years ago, Ehud Shapiro and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, developed a molecular computer out of DNA.