"Upgrading the Cell Nucleus with a Nanocomputer and a Nanobot

Here's a conceptually simple proposal to overcome all biological pathogens except for prions (self-replicating pathological proteins). With the advent of full-scale nanotechnology in the 2020s we will have the potential to replace biology's genetic-information repository in the cell nucleus with a nanoengineered system that would maintain the genetic code and simulate the actions of RNA, the ribosome, and other elements of the computer in biology's assembler. A nano-computer would maintain the genetic code and implement the gene-expression algorithms. A nanobot would then construct the amino-acid sequences for the expressed genes.

There would be significant benefits in adopting such a mechanism. We would eliminate the accumulation of DNA transcription errors, one major source of the aging process (something we'll be able to do long before this scenario, using gene-therapy techniques). We would also be able to defeat biological pathogens (bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells) by blocking any unwanted replication of genetic information."