The not so digital future of digital signal processing

Some of the significant potential applications of digital signal processing (DSP) are discussed. Several concerns are being expressed regarding the use of DSP in specific materials, such as chemical substrates, cells, organisms, or DNA without the use of electric currents. Significant research efforts are continuing to explore the potential application DSP in chemical science and organisms. Research efforts are revealing that DSP can be used with DNA, including building logic circuits using DNA molecules. The simple hybridization force can act as a powerful computational tool using DNA strands as input and processing elements. The sequence of input and processing strands can be designed in such a way that their hybridization can be predicted and controlled. Researchers involved in the field expect that DNA-based logical circuit designs will develop along with synthetic gene networks using DSP.