FET: Medium: Design for Dependability in Systems of Molecular Programs

分子编程是一种新兴的纳米技术，它利用DNA和其他生物分子的信息处理能力来创建和控制非常小的设备。这一领域的科学家每年都在开发更复杂、更精密的设备。分子编程将很快超越基础科学，进入有前景的现实应用领域，从人类的靶向药物输送到与活体组织兼容的智能材料。这个项目正在开发新的方法来设计分子程序系统的可靠性，并对它们的行为进行推理。这项研究将使分子编程更加高效、可靠和安全。研究人员在分子编程方面培养了一批多样化的、成功的研究人员和教育工作者，该项目将开发构建保证案例的方法，未来的应用将需要这些案例，以便在现实世界中得到认证。分子程序的设计和验证面临三大挑战。这些是程序本身的复杂性和随机性，它们将在其中运行的环境的复杂性和随机性，以及它们所设想的许多应用程序的安全关键性质。该项目通过将复杂的分子程序构建为使用生化信号相互通信的简单分子程序的系统，并通过将软件工程的可靠性方法应用于这些系统的设计和验证，来解决这些挑战。该项目的大部分基础科学都在于如何适应一个化学世界，这个世界远比传统软件运行的高度工程化的硅平台更加反复无常。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Molecular programming is an emerging nanotechnology that uses the information-processing capabilities of DNA and other biomolecules to create and control very small devices. Scientists in this area are developing more complex and sophisticated devices every year. Molecular programming will soon move beyond basic science to promising real-world applications ranging from targeted drug-delivery in humans to smart materials that are compatible with living tissue. This project is developing new methods for designing dependability into systems of molecular programs and reasoning about their behavior. This research will make molecular programming more productive, dependable, and safe. The investigators are training a diverse and successful group of researchers and educators in molecular programming, and the project will develop methods for constructing assurance cases that future applications will need in order to be certified for real-world use. The design and verification of molecular programs face three major challenges. These are the complexity and randomness of the programs themselves, the complexity and randomness of the environments in which they will operate, and the safety-critical nature of many of their envisioned applications. This project is addressing these challenges by building complex molecular programs as systems of simpler molecular programs that use biochemical signals to communicate with one another and by adapting dependability methods from software engineering to the design and verification of these systems. Most of the project's fundamental science lies in this adaption to a chemical world that is far more capricious than the highly engineered silicon platforms on which traditional software operates.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.