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I've been accused of being too much of a stickler on this, but while the ribosome and other biological machinery are at the nanoscale, but they are NOT nanotech
by bbgm 16y ago
I've been accused of being too much of a stickler on this, but while the ribosome and other biological machinery are at the nanoscale, but they are NOT nanotechnology. If you use the Drexlerian definition, nanotech much be engineered, which ribosome is definitely not. We can certainly learn from natural systems, but that doesn't make them nanotech.
Also, nanosystems fundamentally are at a scale when quantum properties become important, and classical, mechanical rules start breaking down, which makes things really hard.
Having said that, there are some great examples of nanosystems around, from nanoparticles, to polymer drug delivery systems to materials for PET scans and eventually scalable manufacturing of quantum dots etc. The problem is, that breakthrough is always round the corner. Nano's going to be big, but (a) it is not one technology and (b) we need to be patient cause at those scales things are hard.
- jacquesm 16y agoThe ribosome is nano machinery, not nano technology. Subtle difference there, I did not call it nano tech. And if you re-engineered even a simpler version of a ribosome I'd definitely call that nano technology.
- bbgm 16y agoNo disagreement on those points. I've just spent too much time in the field with people suddenly claiming that protein folding was nanotech.
- jacquesm 16y agoHow would you feel about protein folding if it was at the direction of a completely artificial genome creating proteins that do not normally occur in nature to exact specifications?
- Tichy 16y agoStill, I would argue the biological machinery would count as proof of concept. Evidently it is possible to create self-replicating nano machines. So it is not ridiculous to think about it, as the article claims.