Abstract—Molecular computing is a field with a great potential, but few results of practical value. Although the area still remains to be one of the fastest growing fields of Computer Science it keeps the main issue of computation unsolved or in other word no polynomial time solution to NP-complete problems appeared. Although some approaches to solve NP-complete problems were indeed successfully accomplished on DNA strands. In this paper we introduced the recent works accomplished using DNA computing for solving computational problem. After that, we investigate the open problems on DNA computing on the surface and the research directions in this area. Also, we present the main challenges and limitation of Molecular computing in specific “DNA computing “. Then, we give our analysis and potential proposal and suggestion about the viability of DNA computing to solve computational problems.

Index Terms—DNA computing, molecular computing, NP hard problem, and computational problems

The authors are with Computer Science Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: halshamlan@ksu.edu.sa, menai@ksu.edu.sa)

Cite: Hala M. AlShamlan and Mohammed El Bachir Menai, "Molecular Computing Viability for Solving Computational Problems (Future and Challenges)," International Journal of Computer and Communication Engineering vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 191-195 , 2012.