Scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Oxford have combined DNA origami and DNA motors to take another step toward programmed artificial molecular assembly lines.
Two competing companies have introduced 3D printers for the personal manufacture of complex digitally-designed plastic consumer items. Will this start a trend toward personal digital manufacture of increasingly complex items?
Foldit game players have again out-performed scientists in protein design, this time improving the design of a protein designed from scratch to catalyze Diels-Alder cycloadditions.
RNA CAD tools developed for RNA-regulated control of gene expression in synthetic biology successfully engineered metabolic pathways in bacteria. Will engineering RNA-based genetic control systems lead to design tools for other RNA-based molecular machine systems?
A tutorial review addresses the distinction between the many simple artificial molecular devices that are currently available and truly effective artificial molecular machines that would mimic the ubiquitous molecular machines present in living systems.
In a lecture at Oxford Eric Drexler argued that atomically precise manufacturing will be the next great revolution in the material basis of civilization, and discussed how we can establish reliable knowledge about key aspects of such technologies.
The oscillating synthesis and degradation of regulatory RNA molecules was used to produce a molecular clock to control the opening and closing of a DNA tweezers, and also to control the production of another RNA molecule to alter the fluorescence of a dye molecule.
The Foldit approach to protein structure determination and protein design has proved its worth with the solution by citizen scientists in three weeks of an important protein structure that had stumped scientists working on the problem for more than a decade.
A green nanotechnology roadmap released by the American Chemical Society describes the opportunities and barriers to developing commercial applications of nanomaterials that present little threat of harm to health and the environment, and concludes with an action agenda to more forward.
Will an inexpensive automated evolution machine accelerate the development of molecular machine systems by simultaneously evolving multiple parts to improve function?
