Homo Syntheticus, Addendum B: DNA/nanotube transistors

In his New York Times article Smaller Computer Chips Built Using DNA as Template, Kenneth Chang wrote:

In an advance that might provide a practical method for making molecular-size circuits, the smallest possible, scientists in Israel used strands of DNA, the computer code of life, to create tiny transistors that can literally build themselves.

“What we’ve done is to bring biology to self-assemble an electronic device in a test tube,” said Dr. Erez Braun, a professor of physics at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and a senior author of a paper describing the research today in the journal Science.

The paragraph that really struck me:

The scientists then coated the DNA with gold, producing a simple electronic device consisting of the nanotube connected to gold wires at each end. Current through the nanotube could be switched on or off by applying an electric field — the definition of a transistor.

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