Junk DNA might be really, really useful for biocomputing

[Drashner1]

In terms of RL, I can see some form of biocomputing plausibly becoming a factor at some point in the future if a number of different variables all shake out in a particular way. However, it is likely that said variables could shake out in any of many different other ways such that biocomputing never gets off the ground outside of lab experiments, whether due to being supplanted by some other tech that can match or outperform it or issues of cost and/or difficulty of integration with pre-existing infrastructure or whatever. YMMV.

In terms of OA, presumably somewhere fairly early in the timeline, Terragens figured out the 'algorithms of life' such that they can generate high accuracy computer simulations of what the results will be from adjusting DNA in an arbitrarily large number of ways and such. This would (I assume as a layperson) revolutionize the fields of genetic therapy and gengineering, and avoid many/most of the various morality and ethics issues that tend to crop up around current methods.

Just some thoughts,

Todd