Modeling the DNA Molecule as a Quantum Mechanical Turing Machine*

The DNA molecule can be modeled as a quantum mechanical Turing machine in the manner that was described by Benioff in 1982.  Electron spin ½ qubits are coherently conducted longitudinally along the finite lattice of the DNA “tape” via pi-stacking interactions of the aromatic nucleotide bases, and selectively read into logically and thermodynamically interactive situations in the deoxyribose moiety of each nucleotide via a spin-filtering effect of the helicity of the DNA molecule.  The time-independent subsystem of coherent qubit conduction is separated from the time-dependent subsystem of deterministic expression by the mediation of an enantiomeric shift in the deoxyribose moiety of the nucleotide that functions at an energy level appropriate to the quantum limit (i.e. the Landauer limit).  The system is topologically insulated from the environment through the precise design of the crystalline nanostructure, as was predicted in Schrödinger’s concept of the genetic “aperiodic crystal”.