Construction of a DNA nano-object directly demonstrates computation

We demonstrate a computing method in which a DNA nano-object representing the solution of a problem emerges as a result of self-assembly. We report an experiment in which three-vertex colorability for a six-vertex graph with nine edges is solved by constructing a DNA molecule representing the colored graph itself. Our findings show that computation based on “shape processing” is a viable alternative to symbol processing when computing by molecular self-assembly.