BioMEMs moves toward nanometer scale

from the top-down-bottom-up-whatever-works dept.
Senior Associate Brian Wang brings to our attention a press release from the University of Illinois at Chicago on work presented at the BioMEMs & Biomedical Nanotechnology World 2000 conference: "Another example of therapeutic BioMEMs that Desai will discuss are cell encapsulation devices with nanometer-sized pores that can protect implanted cells or components from large molecules like antibodies while allowing small molecules like hormones and nutrients to freely pass through. Such devices, which have long been dreamed of for implanting pancreatic islet cells in diabetic patients or neurosecretory cells in Parkinson's or Alzheimer's patients, are now being fabricated in Desai's laboratory by micro-machining silicon to create precisely controlled micro- and nano-architectures."