From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
Biomolecular Nanotechnology
is the term coined for synthetic
technology based on the principles
and chemical pathways of living
organisms, ranging from
genetic-engineered microbes to
custom-made organic molecules. It
encompasses the study, creation,
and illumination of the
connections between structural
molecular biology and
molecular nanotechnology,
since the development of nano-machinery
might be guided by studying the
structure and function of the
natural nano-machines found in
living cells. Bionanotechnology
seeks to modify and find
technological uses of natural nano-components
like the nano-motors of
ATP synthase and things like
using the scaffold of the
enzyme complex of
cellulosomes for adding new
enzymes to make "nanosomes".
Introduction
In 1965,
Gordon Moore, one of the
founders of
Intel Corporation, made the
astounding prediction that the
number of transistors that could
be fit in a given area would
double every 18 months for the
next ten years. This it did and
the phenomenon became known as
Moore's Law. This trend has
continued far past the predicted
10 years until this day, going
from just over 2000 transistors in
the original 4004 processors of
1971 to over 40,000,000
transistors in the Pentium 4.
There has, of course, been a
corresponding decrease in the size
of individual electronic elements,
going from millimeters in the 60's
to hundreds of nanometers in
modern circuitry.
At the same time, the
chemistry,
biochemistry and
molecular genetics communities
have been moving in the other
direction. Over much the same
period, it has become possible to
direct the synthesis, either in
the test tube or in modified
living organisms, of larger and
larger and more and more complex
molecular structures, up to tens
or hundreds of nanometers in size.
Enzymes are the molecular devices
that drive life and in recent
years it has both become possible
to manipulate the structures and
functions of these systems in vivo
and to build complex biomimetic
analogues in vitro.
Finally, the last quarter of a
century has seen tremendous
advances in our ability to control
and manipulate light. Solid state
lasers are now available for less
than the price of a hamburger. We
can generate light pulses as short
as a few femtoseconds (1 fs =
10-15 s). We can image light with
computers. And we can send
information almost noiselessly
along fiber optics at bandwidths
of many gigabytes. Light too has a
size and this size is also on the
hundred nanometer scale.
Thus now, at the beginning of a
new century, three powerful
technologies have met on a common
scale -- the nanoscale -- with the
promise of revolutionizing both
the worlds of electronics and of
biology. This new field, which we
refer to as biomolecular
nanotechnology, holds many
possibilities from fundamental
research in molecular biology and
biophysics to applications in
biosensing, biocontrol, genomics,
medicine, computing, information
storage and energy conversion.
Designing the future
Constantinos Mavroidis,
director of the Computational
Bionanorobotics Laboratory at
Northeastern University in Boston,
is exploring an alternative
approach to nanotech:
Rather than starting from
scratch, the concepts in
Mavroidis’s Niac-funded study
employ pre-existing, functional
molecular “machines” that can be
found in all living cells: DNA
molecules, proteins, enzymes, etc.
Shaped by evolution over millions
of years, these biological
molecules are already very adept
at manipulating matter at the
molecular scale – which is why a
plant can combine air, water, and
dirt and produce a juicy red
strawberry, and a person’s body
can convert last night’s potato
dinner into today’s new red blood
cells. The rearranging of atoms
that makes these feats possible is
performed by hundreds of
specialized enzymes and proteins,
and DNA stores the code for making
them. Making use of these
“pre-made” molecular machines – or
using them as starting points for
new designs – is a popular
approach to Bionanotechnology.
“Why reinvent the wheel?”
Mavroidis says. “Nature has given
us all this great, highly refined
nanotechnology inside of living
things, so why not use it – and
try to learn something from it?”
The specific uses of bio-nanotech
that Mavroidis proposes in his
study are very futuristic. One
idea involves draping a kind of
“spider’s web” of hair-thin tubes
packed with bio-nanotech sensors
across dozens of miles of terrain,
as a way to map the environment of
some alien planet in great detail.
Another concept he proposes is a
“second skin” for astronauts to
wear under their spacesuits that
would use bio-nanotech to sense
and respond to radiation
penetrating the suit, and to
quickly seal over any cuts or
punctures. Futuristic? Certainly.
Possible? Maybe. Mavroidis admits
that such technologies are
probably decades away, and that
technology so far in the future
will probably be very different
from what we imagine now. Still,
he says he believes it's important
to start thinking now about what
nanotechnology might make possible
many years down the road.
Considering that life itself
is, in a sense, the ultimate
example of nanotech, the
possibilities are exciting indeed.
