Posts tagged as:

bionanotechnology

The best introduction to DNA nanotechnology

August 28, 2010

For a good overview of structural DNA nanotechnology and DNA origami (a molecular wonder of the modern world), see this presentation from a course in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. The subject calls for a strong visual presentation, and the slides deliver this together with a good description of DNA engineering [...]

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A programmable nanoscale assembly line

May 20, 2010

When I picked up my copy of this week’s Chemical & Engineering News this evening, I found that the lead article begins with this:
Futuristic visions of nanobots that travel the body to treat disease and construct compounds one atom at a time got a little closer to reality this week, thanks to two advances in [...]

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The molecular approach
to atomically precise fabrication

March 12, 2010

A few days ago, I wrote a brief sketch of the status and paths forward in the molecular approach to atomically precise fabrication. It offers a sampling, not a full picture:

 

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Ribo-Q1: Genetic manufacturing expanded

March 1, 2010

All ribosomes read genetic data as three-letter words that encode 20 standard amino acids (give or take a few anomalies). This is equally true of the ribosomes in deep-sea bacteria living at 120°C, and the ones in your thumb. This universal code has been a wall that bounds the scope of biosynthetic polypeptide engineering — [...]

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Cell-free synthetic biology

February 12, 2010

Synthetic biology doesn’t require cells, and in several ways, cells are liabilities.
Cells can make engineering difficult. Cell membranes and bacterial walls stand between new genes and the machinery needed to transcribe and translate them. They are barriers to liberating gene products. They contain systems that are complex products of eons of evolutionary history, not systems [...]

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Molecular Manufacturing:
The NRC study and its recommendations

January 7, 2010

Part 6 of a series prompted by the recent 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. This is arguably the most important post of the series, or of this blog to date.
Topics:
— The most credible study of molecular manufacturing to date
— The study’s recommendations for Federal research support
— The [...]

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“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”
(Richard Feynman, Pasadena, 29 December 1959)

December 29, 2009

“Feynman’s 1959 talk, entitled ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’”, was delivered 50 years ago today, and the words I’ve quoted above are the first words in the first sentence of the first paper I wrote, almost 30 years ago, on what later became known as “nanotechnology”. Feynman read and discussed the paper with [...]

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The Molecular Machine Path
to Molecular Manufacturing (1):
Foldamers and Brownian Assembly

December 25, 2009

Part 3 of a series prompted by the upcoming 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

Lathe, 1911 A machine tool, used to make machines

In my view, the most attractive way forward in developing advanced molecular machine systems is by exploiting the molecular machine systems that are available today. Historically, [...]

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How to make carbon nanotubes
at room temperature

November 15, 2009

As I noted in a recent post on self-assembled nanoelectronics (“Carbon Nanotube Transistors through DNA Origami”), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) hold promise for self-assembled nanomechanical systems, too: They are orders of magnitude stiffer than biomolecules, and can serve not only as rigid components, but also as low-friction linear and rotary bearings to support moving parts.
Recent [...]

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Molecular Nanomachines: Physical Principles and Implementation Strategies

October 1, 2009

I’ve migrated another paper to E-drexler.com:

Drexler, KE. “Molecular Nanomachines: Physical Principles and Implementation Strategies”, Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecular Structure, 23:377-405 (1994).
(With thanks to Robert Bradbury for the original HTML conversion.)

Click to read.

See also:

The Physical Basis of Atomically Precise Manufacturing
A Telescope Aimed at the Future
Productive nanosystems: the physics of molecular fabrication [pdf] (from [...]

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Carbon Nanotubes in Ordered DNA Wrappers

July 12, 2009

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNs) are well known for their outstanding strength, stiffness, and electronic properties, but their utility has been limited by the diversity of their structures and the difficulty of separating different kinds. In a new paper in Nature, a DuPont group reports the development of a new method for separation, one that also [...]

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A Third Revolution in DNA Nanotechnology

May 22, 2009

In a new paper, Shawn Douglas and his colleagues at William Shih’s lab have demonstrated the first systematic method for building multilayer 3D nanostructures of DNA. In his commentary, Tom LaBean calls this “a third revolution in DNA nanotechnology”, following Seeman’s launch of the field and Rothemund’s development of the breakthrough origami technique.
In the authors’ [...]

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