Aspects of molecular computing : essays dedicated to Tom Head on the occasion of His 70th birthday Molecular computing is a rapidly growing subarea of natural computing. On the one hand molecular computing is concerned with the use of bio molecules for the purpose of actual computations while on the other hand it attempts to understand the computational nature of molecular processes going on in living cells. The book presents a unique and authorative state of the art survey on current research in molecular computing: 30 papers by leading researchers in the area are drawn together on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Tom Head a pioneer in molecular computing. Among the topics addressed are molecular tiling DNA self assembly splicing systems DNA based cryptography DNA word design gene assembly and membrane computing