Bugging a Bug

One of the most hideous bugs, to me, is the cockroach. It is hard for me to believe that people actually eat them even though there are significant protein benefits. Once I watched my husband consume two large Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches shish-kabobbed on a skewer with vegetables and a mustard barbeque sauce at an insect culinary demonstration at Crooked River State Park and yes, it looked disgusting from my point of view. The exciting news, if there is any to be had about cockroaches, is that scientists have discovered how to build and release DNA nanobots inside a cockroach. This is threshold science and these DNA nanobots can perform the same logic operations as a silicon-based computer can! Daniel Levner, a bioengineer, and his colleagues at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have been able to make strands with particular DNA sequences and when they come in contact with a particular molecule – say a cancer cell, they unravel and if the DNA has drugs in its folds, it releases them. The team has injected various kinds of nanobots into cockroaches and says the accuracy and control of the nanobots is equal to a computer system. The drawback in introducing these biological nanobots into the human body is that it triggers an immune system response. Although, it’s probably at least 5 years away, Ido Bachelet of Bar IIan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, believes they can make these nanobots stable enough to withstand an immune system response. I think I could do the nanobots maybe, just not in cockroaches!