[2] Prior to March 2013, scientists had successfully demonstrated the ability to store and transmit data using biological components made of proteins and DNA.
[2] Simple two-terminal logic gates had been demonstrated, but required multiple layers of inputs and thus were impractical due to scaling difficulties.
[3] On March 28, 2013, a team of bioengineers from Stanford University led by Drew Endy announced that they had created the biological equivalent of a transistor, which they named a "transcriptor".
[2][3] The transcriptor regulates the flow of RNA polymerase across a strand of DNA using special combinations of enzymes to control movement.
[1]UC Berkeley biochemical engineer Jay Keasling said the transcriptor "clearly demonstrates the power of synthetic biology and could revolutionize how we compute in the future".