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SUMMARY:Molecular programming - Luca Cardelli (Microsoft Research)
DTSTART:20100630T141500Z
DTEND:20100630T151500Z
UID:TALK25224@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Fabien Petitcolas
DESCRIPTION:*Abstract*: Moore's law is pushing technology towards smaller 
 and smaller devices\, and quite soon we will reach the ultimate goal: devi
 ces made of single molecules. At that point we will need to engineer syste
 ms one molecule at a time\, using tools of comparable accuracy. Molecular 
 engineering is already in full swing\, but that usually means building ad-
 hoc molecular devices that lack programmability.\n\nNucleic acids (DNA/RNA
 ) encode information digitally\, and are currently the only truly ‘user-
 programmable’ entities at the molecular scale. The fact that they have b
 iological origin is incidental: they are just very handy engineering mater
 ials. DNA/RNA can be used to manufacture nano-scale and meso-scale structu
 res\, produce physical forces\, act as sensors and actuators\, and also to
  compute. They are unique in that they are both materials and carriers of 
 information: they are programmable matter. Moreover they can interface to 
 biological entities\, with enormous medical implications: we will be able 
 to detect and cure diseases at the cellular level under program control. \
 n\nThe (bio-)technology to create and manipulate nucleic acids has existed
  for many years\, but the imagination necessary to exploit them programmat
 ically has been evolving slowly. Recently\, some simple computational sche
 mes have been developed that are autonomous (run completely on their own o
 nce initialized) and involve only short\, easily synthesizable\, DNA stran
 ds with no other complex molecules. Since DNA computation is massively con
 current\, some tricky and yet familiar issues arise: the need to formally 
 analyze and verify molecular programs to avoid subtle deadlocks and race c
 onditions\, and the need to design high-level languages and compilers that
  exploit concurrency and stochasticity. \n\nMolecular programming is the e
 merging discipline of designing and constructing molecular system that beh
 ave algorithmically\, in carrying out computation\, in forming physical an
 d dynamic structures\, or both.\n\n*Biography*: Luca Cardelli was born nea
 r Montecatini Terme\, Italy\, studied at the University of Pisa (until 197
 8-07-12)\, and has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Edin
 burgh (1982-04-01). He worked at Bell Labs\, Murray Hill\, from 1982-04-05
  to 1985-09-20\, and at Digital Equipment Corporation\, Systems Research C
 enter in Palo Alto\, from 1985-09-30 to 1997-10-31\, before assuming a pos
 ition on 1997-11-03 at Microsoft Research\, in Cambridge UK\, where he is 
 currently Principal Researcher and head of the Programming Principles and 
 Tools and Security groups.\n\nHis main interests are in type theory and op
 erational semantics (for applications to language design\, semantics\, and
  implementation)\, and in concurrency theory (for applications to computer
  networks and to modeling biological systems). He implemented the first co
 mpiler for ML (one of the most popular typed functional language\, whose r
 ecent incarnations are Caml and F#) and one of the earliest direct-manipul
 ation user-interface editors. He was a member of the Modula-3 design commi
 ttee\, and has designed a few experimental languages\, including Obliq: a 
 distributed higher-order scripting language (voted most influential POPL'9
 5 paper 10 years later)\, and Polyphonic C#\, a distributed extension of C
 #. His more protracted research activity has been in establishing the sema
 ntic and type-theoretic foundations of object-oriented languages\, resulti
 ng in the 1996 book "A Theory of Objects" with Martin Abadi. More recently
  he has focused on modeling global and mobile computation\, via the Ambien
 t Calculus and Spatial Logics\, which indirectly led to a current interest
  in Systems Biology and stochastic systems.
LOCATION:Small Lecture Room\, Microsoft Research\, Roger Needham Building\
 , 7 J J Thomson Avenue\, Cambridge CB3 0FB
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