American scientists, looking to 1985 and beyond, are working feverishly to enhance the usefulness of computers In everyday life.

     The goal is a dramatic one: To grow computer circuitry in biology labs from living bacteria, producing microprocessors with 10 million times the memory of today's most powerful machines.

     In theory, such tiny supercomputers would find a virtually endless list of applications. They could connect with the human nervous system, serving as artificial eyes, ears and voice boxes. 

     A desk-top device could hold all the information ever recorded by mankind.

     Research on the organic computer, or "biochip," is a growing priority for a small but influential group of physicists, genetic engineers, chemists, mathematicians and molecular biologists. They say traditional semiconductor technology will soon reach its limit of memory and miniaturization as more and more information is squeezed onto chips made of silicon a widely found element.

     Research (information lost - old article).      Already, biochip advances are being made at universities, and detective(<--unable to read word),  and medical researchers and analysts believe the U.S. will be the first nation to produce a working prototype.  If so, American producers would win an enormous international competitive advantage against Japan and Western Europe, with incalculable payoffs in jobs and investment.

     For example, man-made organic computers might be able to detect their own internal-design flaws and even repair and replicate themselves.

     Minuscule computers implanted in the bloodstream could monitor body chemistry and correct imbalances.  A hand-held calculator using molecular electronics might have a memory capacity of a trillion words.

     Robots controlled by tins supercomputers could conduct many high-risk chores, such as deep-sea rescues, fire fighting or defusing of bombs.

     Such plans are envisioned by Forrest Carter, head of the molecular-electronics research project at the Nasal Research Laboratory near Washington D.C.  "At some point in the future," Carter observes, "silicon may no longer be the construction material of choice for semiconductor chips. We need to start planning now for the day when computer circuits will be infinitesimally small."

     In essence, computer chips are a vast collection of microscopic transistors that turn on and off to transmit or block an electrical current. The improving intelligence of machines is the result of packing more circuitry onto smaller and smaller boards.

     "In the design of computer hardware, small is beautiful, and smaller is even more beautiful," explains Robert Haddon, a researcher at Bell Laboratories. Although chips made of silicon and other, more exotic materials now contain as many as 1 million bits of information, researchers face a growing problem: Heat buildup from the tiny circuits can cause a chip to overheat and melt.

     If the new technology Is successful, future circuits will be designed from specially tailored groups or organic proteins the size of molecules that would serve as electronic memory and switching devices in chips.

     "Organic materials will be smaller, faster and cheaper than the increasingly sophisticated equipment needed to etch smaller lines onto conventional chips," explains James McAlear, president of Gentronix Laboratories in Rockville, Md. "Because proteins have the ability to assemble themselves, the computer could more or less put itself together."

     Some of the groundwork needed to turn molecules into computers ready been laid.  Scientist at the Universlty of Mississippi and at Warwick University in Britain are experimenting with organically grown chemicals that turn on and off like transistors and display other electrical properties like those of silicon.

     The National Science Foundation, which has been doubtful about biochip technology in past years, is now stepping up research funding in the field.

     Working-model prospects.   If additional funding begins to flow from industry, some researchers are convinced, a working model of an organic computer could be completed by the mid-1990s.

     At the same time, scientists are aware of vast technical problems that face such a cutting-edge technology.  "In a sense, "says Kevin Ulmer, research director for protein engineering at Genex Corporation, also located in Rockyville, "people are talking about making a computer from the very stuff life.  We have a road map that shows us how we might get to that goal, but it's going to take some solid experimental results to convince the skeptics that it's a worth while effort."

World's first computer did work of Today's single chip.

Scientists now see day when "biochips" will far outperform existing technology.

* U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Dec. 31, 1984/Jan. 7, 1985

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