Abstract: The present invention provides proteinaceous molecules to encode solutions to computational problems. In one aspect, a proteinaceous molecule is used as a representation of a combination of values for variables of a computational problem. In a second aspect, a library of proteinaceous molecules representing essentially all relevant solutions to at least one computational problem are used. The invention further provides a nucleic acid library encoding a library of proteinaceous molecules according to the invention. In another aspect, the invention includes a method for detecting a proteinaceous molecule representing a combination of values for variables of a computational problem comprising contacting a library of proteinaceous molecules of the invention, with a set of binding molecules designed for binding to proteinaceous molecules representing solutions.

Abstract: The present invention provides proteinaceous molecules to encode solutions to computational problems. In one aspect, a proteinaceous molecule is used as a representation of a combination of values for variables of a computational problem. In a second aspect, a library of proteinaceous molecules representing essentially all relevant solutions to at least one computational problem are used. The invention further provides a nucleic acid library encoding a library of proteinaceous molecules according to the invention. In another aspect, the invention includes a method for detecting a proteinaceous molecule representing a combination of values for variables of a computational problem comprising contacting a library of proteinaceous molecules of the invention, with a set of binding molecules designed for binding to proteinaceous molecules representing solutions.

Abstract: A computational method that makes use of DNA molecules is disclosed. The method can be summarized as follows. First, a set of DNA molecules representing (by their sequences) all possible assignments to all variables of a given computational problem is generated (this is the so-called combinatorial library of the problem). Second, all the DNA molecules representing assignments which do not correspond to solutions of the problem are inactivated (blocked) for reproduction or detection. Finally, one has to check only whether any active (non-blocked) molecules remain: a solution of the problem exists if and only if any such molecules remain. In principle this allows to solve computationally difficult problems. We illustrate our method by outlining a solution for the famous satisfiability problem using both a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and a fluorescent quenching assay.