Molecular motor fueled by ATP made at Cornell

from the let's-put-these-machines-to-work dept.
About the 24 November Science special issue on nanotechnology [some parts accessible with free login], Foresight's Tanya Jones writes "Check out the article on Carlo Montemagno's efforts to build a molecular motor at http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/11/25/science/25NANO.html" Excerpts: "Writing in Friday's issue of the journal Science, scientists at Cornell University report that they hooked up a tiny motor to a metal propeller and spun the propeller around at up to eight revolutions a second. 'This is the first true nano machine,' said Dr. Carlo D. Montemagno, professor of biological engineering at Cornell and senior author of the Science paper…Since the motor draws its energy from the same organic molecules that power living cells, Dr. Montemagno suggests that scientists may one day be able to build robots much smaller than bacteria that will be able to repair cellular damage, manufacture medicines and attack cancer cells. 'This opens the door to make machines that live inside the cell,' Dr. Montemagno said. 'It allows us to merge engineered devices into living systems…We're going to have the device self-assemble inside the human cell,' he said. "That's what we're working on now.' " CP: You can download a video clip.