The ultimate goal of this computational approach: to program biology like we program computers. That's a breakthrough that would open all sorts of possibilities for everything from treating diseases to feeding the world with more efficient crops. "All aspects of our daily lives will be affected," said Andrew Phillips, who heads the Biological Computation Research Group. Phillips said one approach is to create a kind of molecular computer that you would put inside a cell to monitor for disease. If the sensor detected a disease, it would actuate a response to fight it.