Nanotechnology and its applications to healthcare

Nanotechnology and its applications to healthcare Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. Principal Fellow

The overheads (in PowerPoint) are available on the web at:
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/talks/ppt/
France 010608.ppt
Slides on web

Ninth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology
November 9-11, 2001
Santa Clara, California Introductory tutorial November 8
www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT9/
Foresight

Foresight www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/ www.nanodot.org Gatherings

Health, wealth and atoms

Arranging atoms
Diversity
Precision
Cost

Richard Feynman,1959 There’s plenty of room at the bottom

1980’s, 1990’s Binnig and Rohrer Experiment and theory

President Clinton, 2000
“ Imagine the possibilities: materials with ten times the strength of steel and only a small fraction of the weight -- shrinking all the information housed at the Library of Congress into a device the size of a sugar cube -- detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size.”
The National Nanotechnology Initiative

Arrangements of atoms . Today Overview

The goal . Overview

Core molecular manufacturing capabilities Today Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Overview

Positional assembly

Experimental 100 microns

H. J. Lee and W. Ho, SCIENCE 286, p. 1719, NOVEMBER 1999 Experimental

Theoretical

Property Diamond’s value Comments
Chemical reactivity Extremely low
Hardness (kg/mm2) 9000 CBN: 4500 SiC: 4000
Thermal conductivity (W/cm-K) 20 Ag: 4.3 Cu: 4.0
Tensile strength (pascals) 3.5 x 10 9 (natural) 10 11 (theoretical)
Compressive strength (pascals) 10 11 (natural) 5 x 10 11 (theoretical)
Band gap (ev) 5.5 Si: 1.1 GaAs: 1.4
Resistivity (W-cm) 10 16 (natural)
Density (gm/cm3) 3.51
Thermal Expansion Coeff (K-1) 0.8 x 10 -6 SiO2: 0.5 x 10 -6
Refractive index 2.41 @ 590 nm Glass: 1.4 - 1.8
Coeff. of Friction 0.05 (dry) Teflon: 0.05
Source: Crystallume
What to make Diamond physical properties

Making diamond today Illustration courtesy of P1 Diamond Inc.

Hydrogen abstraction tool

Other molecular tools

Bearing

Planetary gear

Fine motion controller

Theoretical

Self replication A redwood tree ( sequoia sempervirens ) 112 meters tall Redwood National Park

The Von Neumann architecture Universal Computer Universal Constructor http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/vonNeumann.html Self replication

Replicating bacterium DNA DNA Polymerase Self replication

http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_6.html Drexler’s proposal for an assembler Self replication

Von Neumann's constructor 500,000
Mycoplasma genitalia 1,160,140
Drexler's assembler 100,000,000
Complexity (bits)

Micro rotation

Exponential assembly

The impact
of a manufacturing technology
depends on what we manufacture
Impact

We’ll have more computing power in the volume of a sugar cube than the sum total of all the computer power that exists in the world today
More than 10 21 bits in the same volume
Almost a billion Pentiums in parallel
Impact Powerful Computers

Disease and ill health are caused largely by damage at the molecular and cellular level
Today’s surgical tools are huge and imprecise in comparison
Impact Nanomedicine

In the future, we will have fleets of surgical tools that are molecular both in size and precision.
We will also have computers much smaller than a single cell to guide those tools.
Impact Nanomedicine

Scale “ Typical” mitochondrion ~1-2 by 0.1-0.5 microns Size of a robotic arm ~100 nanometers 8-bit computer

Scale “ Typical” cell: ~20 microns Mitochondrion Size of a robotic arm ~100 nanometers 8-bit computer

Remove infections

Clear obstructions

Respirocyte

Today: preserve function
Tomorrow: preserve structure
A Revolution

Liquid nitrogen Time Temperature Cryonics

Would you rather
join the control group
or
the experimental group?
(www.alcor.org)
What to do?

“ Thus, like so much else in medicine, cryonics, once considered on the outer edge, is moving rapidly closer to reality”
ABC News World News Tonight , Feb 8 th
“… [medical] advances are giving new credibility to cryonics.”
KRON 4 News, NightBeat, May 3, 2001
Perception

By Robert Freitas, Zyvex Research Scientist
Surveys medical applications of nanotechnology
Volume I (of three) published in 1999
Theory Nanomedicine http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine

Human impact on the environment depends on
Population
Living standards
Technology
The Vision

Restoring the environment with nanotechnology
Low cost greenhouse agriculture
Low cost solar power
Pollution free manufacturing
The Vision

Nanotechnology offers ... possibilities for health, wealth, and capabilities beyond most past imaginings.
K. Eric Drexler

http://www.nanopaprika.eu	29
http://www.slideshare.net	18
http://nanoscience.ning.com	1

Nanotechnology and its applications to healthcare

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Nanotechnology and its applications to healthcare — Presentation Transcript