In the future, swarms of robots could be called in to build impressive structures or clean up dangerous messes too small to be seen with the naked eye. Just ask researchers at Caltech, who have designed surprisingly simple robots made of DNA.

　　将来，人类可能会使用大量的机器人来建造引人注目的建筑物，或清理由于太小肉眼看不到的危险杂物。我们刚采访了加州理工学院的研究人员，令人惊讶的是，他们设计出了简单的由DNA制成的机器人。

　　The findings, published in the journal Science, mark another step on the road to creating tiny robots that could revolutionize medicine.

　　该发现的研究结果发表在科学杂志上，标志着接下来他们可以制造微型机器人给医学带来革命性的革新。

　　“I thought it was a fairly major step forward in molecular robotics,” said John Reif, a DNA nanoscientist at Duke University who was not involved in the research. The experiment, he said, “demonstrated that a little army of DNA robots can operate in parallel independently to work together to solve a problem.”

　　杜克大学的DNA纳米科学家John Reif 未参与到研究，但他说：“我认为这是分子机器人技术的一大进步”。谈到这个实验，他说到“这个实验表明，DNA机器人的小军队可以独立并行运作，共同解决问题。”

　　The robot is made of 53 nucleotides — the basic structural units of DNA — and is 20 nanometers tall. It has different body parts: a hand and an arm for grabbing cargo; a foot, a leg and another foot for walking. (Because of the shape of its body, “walking” looks more like crawling around like a drunken inchworm; the little bot does this on a tiny flat surface roughly 60 by 60 nanometers in area that is also built out of DNA.)

　　该机器人由53个核苷酸(DNA基本结构单元)组成，高20纳米。 它具有不同的身体部位：用于抓取货物的手和手臂; 一只脚，一条腿，以及一只走路的脚。 由于身体形状结构，“走路”看起来像醉酒的蚯蚓一样爬行;该微型机器人在大约60乘60纳米的小平面上活动，该平面也由DNA构建。

　　DNA comprises four bases — adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine, or A, G, T and C for short. These bases come in complementary pairs: The A’s on one DNA strand can stick to the Ts on another, and the Cs stick to the Gs. These pairs also can unstick pretty easily, which is great for life (it allows for DNA strands to separate and replicate) and also great for these tiny robots, which need to attach to and detach from surfaces as they move.

　　DNA包括四个碱基 - 腺嘌呤，鸟嘌呤，胸腺嘧啶和胞嘧啶，或简称为A，G，T和C。 这些碱基是互补的：一个DNA链上的A碱基可以粘附到另一个DNA的T碱基上，C碱基可粘附到G碱基上。 这些碱基对也可以很容易地脱落，对生命来说这是非常棒的(它会允许DNA链分离和复制)，对于这些微小的机器人来说也有益处，它们在移动时需要附着在表面且与表面分离。

　　For this work, led by recent PhD graduate and bioengineer Anupama Thubagere, researchers designed a flat surface made of DNA and inserted DNA “pegs” to which the robots could stick their feet as they walked. Also sitting on this surface were “cargo,” in the form of yellow and pink fluorescent molecules, and cargo drop-off points. The robots were programmed to walk around until they encountered a tiny piece of cargo, then pick it up and travel until they encountered the right drop-off point.

　　这项研究工作由最近的博士研究生和生物工程师Anupama Thubagere负责，研究人员设计了一个由DNA制成的平面，并插入了DNA“钉”，机器人可以在其走路时固定住脚。在这个表面上还附有黄色和粉红色荧光分子形式的“货物”，以及货物的下落点。 机器人按照编程移动，直到他们遇到一小块货物，然后拿起并继续行进直到遇到正确的下落点。

　　Scientists have been making robots out of DNA for years partly because the molecule’s properties are understood well-enough that they can be harnessed in different ways.

　　多年来，科学家已经将机器人与DNA成功分离，能够做到这点的部分原因是分子的性质被研究人员理解得足够到位，可以以不同的方式进行使用。

　　For example: The feet are only six bases long because scientists know that a strand of DNA that’s less than seven bases long can spontaneously detach from the complementary bases on another strand. That’s useful for walking because the robot needs to attach a foot to a surface and then detach it to take another step.

　　例如：脚只有六个碱基长，科学家们知道一条小于7个碱基长的DNA可以自发地从另一条链上的互补碱基脱离。 这对于行走是有用的，因为机器人需要将一个脚附着在一个表面上，然后将其分开来迈出下一步。

　　But this particular DNA robot is different because it’s so simple, relatively speaking. It’s hard to add additional functions to an already-complicated little bot. It’s much easier to add those functions to a simple one.

　　但这种特殊的DNA机器人是非同一般的，因为它比较简单。 所以，很难为本来已经复杂的小机器人再添加附加功能。 而将这些功能添加到一个功能简单的机器人上要容易得多。

　　A simpler structure also is less likely to be affected in unexpected ways by the complex chemistry of biology, scientists said.

　　科学家说，更简单的结构也不太可能受到生物学复杂化学意想不到的影响。

　　Researchers ran multiple robots, each with its own tiny DNA playing field, showing that even though they’re simple, they could work in compartmentalized large groups to finish a task.

　　研究人员试验了多个机器人，每个机器人都有自己的小型DNA游戏场，结果显示尽管它们很简单，但是他们可以在分区化的大型团队中完成任务。

　　Such robots could be useful in all sorts of medical contexts, from detecting cancer and other disease markers to setting up little molecular factories that could build drugs and send them into the bloodstream when needed.

　　这种机器人可用于各种医疗环境，从检测癌症和其他疾病标志物到可以建立药物的小分子工厂，并在需要时将其送入血液。

　　For now, the Caltech work is one of many steps on the road to that idea, Thubagere said.

　　现在，加州理工学院的工作是走上这个想法上的许多步骤之一，Thubagere说道。

　　“I am interested in taking the lessons we learnt from building this system into designing therapeutic tools,” she wrote in an email. “But in order to do so we will have to understand the stability of such systems in more complex and changing environments.”

　　她在一封电子邮件中写道：“把我们从建立这个系统的经验教训转化成设计治疗工具，我很感兴趣。”， “要做到这一点，我们必须了解这种系统在更加复杂易变环境中的稳定性。”。