Olympus Optical Co. said Monday it has developed a DNA computer capable of high-speed, fully automated, quantitative gene expression profiling.

Japan's major precision-instruments maker said the main feature of what it calls the "world's first functional DNA computer for gene analysis" is that it reduces the time required for gene expression profiling to about six hours from the three days typically taken by conventional means.

The computer will contribute to further gene analysis and the research and development of tailor-made medicines in the future, the firm added.

After testing a prototype, the company said it plans to begin offering full-scale analytical services using the computer in 2003.

It also plans to publish the latest results of its performance testing at an international meeting on DNA computers, scheduled for June 10 to June 13 at Hokkaido University in Sapporo.

The computer uses artificial DNA fragments as memory.

"This makes the computer highly versatile and capable of being optimized for a wide range of analytical techniques applicable to different diseases, or for the analysis of the genomes of various organisms," it said.

Olympus Optical said it launched a joint development project for the DNA computer in February 2001 together with Akira Suyama, associate professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and NovusGene Inc., a joint venture set up by Olympus, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co. and trading house Mitsui & Co.

The notion of a DNA computer originated in the early 1990s. A DNA computer is based on the computational abilities of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which derive from the highly specific, base sequence-dependent chemical reactions between different DNA strands.

DNA computers are believed to have massive parallel processing capabilities and huge memory capacity, and are particularly applicable in genomic analysis.