We can pattern a surface with single-stranded DNA containing a specific nucleotide sequence, then coat cells with single-stranded DNA that contains a complementary sequence.

What we have here is a hybrid of two molecules that are extremely sensitive to outside signals: single stranded DNA, which serves as the 'detector,' and a carbon nanotube, which functions as 'transmitter,' ... Put the two together and they become an extremely versatile type of sensor, capable of finding tiny amounts of a specific molecule.

Everything I know about counterterrorism is, you deal with specific cells.

Just as DNA chips revolutionized genome analysis, we hope to make cell chips (self-assembled arrays of cells on a thumbnail-sized chip) using our DNA-based cell adhesion strategy. Cell chips could be used as biosensors for detecting the presence of pathogens, or for drug screening, just to name of a few of the many possibilities.

It's a shotgun approach. You put the microbes through a blender, and then sequence the fragments of DNA that are floating around. Then you use a lot of computing power to reconstruct the genomes of this collection of organisms.

I was using very unconventional methods to sequence the telemetric DNA, originally.