UNM SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR RECEIVES NSF CAREER AWARD; PUBLISHES IN NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY

August 22, 2003

UNM SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR RECEIVES NSF CAREER AWARD; PUBLISHES IN NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY

Darko Stefanovic, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science in the School of Engineering (SOE) at the University of New Mexico has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award.

The five-year grant is for $450,000. Stefanovic’s research involves recently discovered deoxyribozyme logic gates as a new foundation of decision-making and computational logic networks. Stefanovic, with Milan N. Stojanovic of the Department of Medicine, Columbia University, established last year that molecular logic gates can be built using deoxyribozymes, which are enzymes that catalyze nucleic acid reactions. The molecular logic gates have inputs and outputs of the same kind - concentrations of oligonucleotides. The research provided the first demonstration of molecular logic gates that are uniform in nature, and so allow gates to be connected.

Their newest result, a first-ever game-playing molecular automaton, appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology. The automaton, called MAYA, implements a version of tic-tac-toe. Stefanovic says the goal of the proposed research is to establish the basis for modular and reliable construction of larger circuits using deoxyribozyme logic gates that can one day be used in medicine.

“The advances are twofold - from the chemistry side we have more complex gates than before,” said Stefanovic. “We now have logic gates that accept three controlling inputs that have been tested experimentally, including the verification of their digital behavior. For example, input one has to be present; input two has to be present; and input three must not be present. In that case, you get an output. The other chemical achievement is that several such gates are operating in the same solution at the same time. In some cases it is up to six molecular logic gates working in parallel.

“From the computer science standpoint, analyzing the game of tic-tac-toe (converting to a set of Boolean logic formulae) and making sure that these formulae actually work as a game of tic-tac-toe without any conflicts, and that they only use logic functions that are available in this chemical implementation, was the other accomplishment.”

Stefanovic and Stojanovic hope the broader impact of the work will eventually provide models of deoxyribozyme logic circuits, modeling techniques and software artifacts including simulators and oligonucleotide libraries to the scientific community. Other plans include interdisciplinary collaborations between computer science, biochemistry and the emerging field of nanotechnology.

Additionally, they hope to establish foundations for diagnostic and therapeutic applications where individual cells are analyzed and treated, which will reliably identify diseased cells from healthy cells.

Stefanovic has been at UNM SOE since 2000 after completing his post-doctoral work at Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts.

The NSF Early Career Development program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers NSF’s most prestigious awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.

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