Next steps

Speaking at a London Nanotechnology Event:
“How can we capture the possibilities but avoid the pitfalls of nanotechnology?”

March 15, 2013

From the Oxford Martin School’s announcement: Time: 26 March 2013 18:30 – 19:45 Location: Nesta, 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE Featured Event “How can we capture the possibilities but avoid the pitfalls of nanotechnology?” This London-based event is a collaboration between the Oxford Martin School, Policy Exchange and Nesta It’s often called the ‘fourth [...]

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An Advance in Structural DNA Nanotechnology

March 5, 2013

Faster, more reliable fabrication of atomically precise products: We demonstrate that, at constant temperature, hundreds of DNA strands can cooperatively fold a long template DNA strand within minutes into complex nanoscale objects….Folding at optimized constant temperatures enabled the rapid production of three-dimensional DNA objects with yields that approached 100%. The results point to similarities with [...]

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Beilstein Symposium 2012:
Molecular Engineering and Control

May 23, 2012

Last week I gave the opening talk at the 10th Beilstein Symposium in Prien, Germany, a meeting focused on molecular engineering and control. This is a small, invitational meeting series — the kind where about half the participants are also speakers. What makes the Beilstein Symposiums unusual is their cross-disciplinary orientation. At this year’s meeting, [...]

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Peptoid technology for molecular nanosystems — My review is now online

November 7, 2011

My invited review “Peptoids at the 7th Summit: Toward Macromolecular Systems Engineering” [pdf] kicks off the peptoid special issue of Biopolymers: Peptide Science. Astoundingly, all the papers are open access. Here’s the abstract: Peptoids at the 7th Summit: Toward Macromolecular Systems Engineering Methods for facile synthesis of extraordinarily diverse peptide-like oligomers have placed peptoids at [...]

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My next book: Radical Abundance, 2013

July 21, 2011

I’m now working on a new book, Radical Abundance, scheduled for publication in 2013 by PublicAffairs. The book has a wide scope in both its content and intended audience, addressing scientists, a general reading audience, and thought leaders in the policy arena. Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that I’ve touched on in [...]

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An advance in atomically precise
building-block assembly

May 27, 2011

A paper in Science reports a design method that substantially advances the macromolecular technology base for building atomically precise nanosystems. Background: foldamer engineering As many readers know, biology shows an effective way build large, intricate, atomically precise systems: Use covalent chemistry to build chains of small building blocks, and design these chains to fold into [...]

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Crystallizing molecular assemblies
that don’t exist

April 26, 2011

Leroy Cronin’s group has pioneered the development of large, atomically precise metal oxide clusters (the polyoxometalates) with an eye to applications in nanotechnology. A recent publication shows why crystal engineering is a natural complement to this work — and to the engineering of self-assembling systems in general. Here’s an excerpt from the abstract (emphasis added): [...]

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The Quantum Information Science
and Technology Roadmap
(for example…)

April 24, 2011

Roadmaps are crucial in developing new technology platforms — in other words, for the coordinated development of complete sets of compatible technologies that, taken together, support system-level technologies at a new level. Whether formal or informal, roadmaps address a fundamental problem of risk and mutual expectations in technology development: the problem of giving all necessary [...]

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Across the blood-brain barrier with exosomes

March 22, 2011

New work with exosomes promises wide-ranging advances in medicine, courtesy of an emerging biomolecular nanotechnology. As pharmaceutical chemists know, the blood-brain barrier blocks delivery of many molecules that do wonderful things if injected directly into the brain, but injecting the brain isn’t quite as convenient as injecting a vein. Exosomes are lipid vesicles manufactured by [...]

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Atomic Layer Deposition
for Atomically-Precise Crystal Fabrication (2)

February 16, 2011

The American Vacuum Society writes to announce ALD 2011, the 11th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition: Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a fast-moving frontier, profoundly impacting diverse applications and gaining momentum for industrialization and manufacturing, while leaving plenty of room for new science and innovation…. ALD is receiving attention for its potential applications from [...]

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New project launched:
Atomic Scale and Single Molecule
Logic Gate Technologies

November 25, 2010

The Atomic Scale and Single Molecule Logic Gate Technologies project is a Singapore/EU effort that aims to build atomically precise digital devices and circuits by direct surface manipulation at cryogenic temperatures. According to the project leader, Prof Christian Joachim, “The UHV interconnection machine at IMRE [in Singapore] is the only one in the entire project [...]

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The 2010 Nobel Prize
for Graphene Nanotechnology

October 5, 2010

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have just won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”, and their work has opened a broad frontier in nanotechnology. Graphene is best known for its remarkable electronic properties, which make it both a wonderland for physicists and a contender for future transistors [...]

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