Knowing a little inside info about this development I must add a big word of caution on this science. It may be possible to add this type of coding in an optical format, in short the code may be able to be added say to a video and when someone watches the video the optical tissues in their eyes and retina may begin to transfer into whatever form of tissue is coded. This may indeed be able to effect brain tissue by this route of administration and that is terrifying!
Doesn't this require a physical package of some sort of bio material to be delivered to the cell, with electricity being used to open the cell membranes and push it through via ions? If I'm understanding that correctly, then how do you make the leap to optical-only transfer? It's almost as if you're claiming that an optical signal could somehow cause a buffer-overflow exploit in the cone/rod cells of a human eye, and then root the cell's "kernel" and start making run-time patches. And that sounds like a completely different scientific breakthrough than what this TNT stuff sounds like. could you elaborate any further?
Does sound interesting tho, just extrapolating but light/photons do contain energy and hence may just be able to initiate such an action. May depend on the type of display being used .
So I was curious about this and read the supplemental pdf, thank you justintocci. The technology hinges on Nanochannel Electroporation as the storage and delivery vehicle for the DNA. Found the following paper (scrapped the url from Wiley) that goes into detail. The potential here is insane!
It looks like it is being advanced as a proprietary technology and they don't want to publish on the mechanism until it is commercialized. However there is a patent http://www.google.com.pg/patents/WO2010012077A1?cl=en
...which has reference #14 has Sen listed as the author of another article (can't find direct link), here's #14 though:
Sen, C. K. & Ghatak, S. miRNA control of tissue repair and regeneration. Am. J. Pathol. 185, 2629–2640 (2015).
