We finish up thinking about the strings of Biology, and imagine the operations we can perform on these strings. All along we wonder: (1) does this happen in the cell naturally, and (2) does this involve information transfer or, perish the thought, computation.

1. Review of central dogma of biology.
2. Some simple pattern matching that happens during gene expression:
   • Gene recognition: binding sites, start and stop codons.
   • In eukaryotes: splice site recognition by the, yes, splicosome (recognition of dimers that bracket intron: GT-AG)
3. How fixed is the genetic code? Could it be reprogrammed in the ribosome?
4. A bit of electrical engineering getting us ready for Drew Endy (all a preview of later lectures and a lab).
   • Some simple gates.
   • Some feedback loops.
5. No lab today, but talk tomorrow, Bio auditorium, 2:35pm.

Resources needed for this class:

• We've browsed through the basic genetics primer at NCBI.
• Here's a wonderful paper (soon classic) about ribosome structure.
• A short, award-winning paper by Wang describing the hijacking of RNA translation by engineers....

Things we'll think about for the next class:

• Fragments from an article on Ed Fredkin. You've been handed a paragraph about Ed Fredkin. Cut the strips out and align them to form the paragraph to be handed in for next class.

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