From a Mercury News story about biological computing experimentation at Stanford University:

“In the foreseeable future, humans might carry microscopic natural computers inside their cells that could guard against disease and warn of toxic threats based on a Stanford research achievement.

A team of engineers there has invented genetic transistors, completing a simple computer within living cells, a major step forward in the emerging field of synthetic biology.

The startling achievement, to be unveiled in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, presages the day when ‘living computers’ inside the human body could screen for cancer, detect toxic chemicals or even turn cell reproduction on and off.

‘We’re going to be able to put computers inside any living cell you want,’ said lead researcher Drew Endy of Stanford’s School of Engineering.

‘We’re not going to replace the silicon computers. We’re not going to replace your phone or your laptop,’ he said. ‘But we’re going to get computing working in places where silicon would never work.

‘Any place you want a little bit of logic, a little bit of computation, a little bit of memory — we’re going to be able to do that,’ said Endy.”