Fast DNA sequence alignment using optical computing

摘要

Alignment of DNA sequences is a necessary step prior to comparison of sequence data. High-speed alignment is needed due to the large size of DNA databases. Correlation, a standard pattern recognition technique, can be used to perform alignment. Correlation can be performed rapidly using optical techniques. Thus, optical correlation offers the potential for high-speed processing of DNA sequence data. This report describes research efforts to apply one-dimensional acousto-optical correlation methods to the problem of DNA sequence alignment. Experimental results are presented.