3 ms·

Natural protein vs. designed (nano)machines

23 points by ph0rque 18y ago

davi 18y ago
biology sets lower bounds for what is possible I was surprised when I evaluated this to be a true statement. As a biologist I'm used to marveling at how optimal everything seems in the natural world, and at how evolutionarily distant organisms converge on the same form given similarity between ecological niches. But take flight as an example: we can fly orders of magnitude faster than the fastest flying organism. The upper end of the biological case is the lower bound of what is possible. The early use of the biological example was to inform us that flight was possible at all. More directly related to the topic of the article, this New Yorker piece, on a new class of therapeutic compounds for correcting protein folding errors: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/04/090504fa_fact_groopman http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/04/090504fa_fact_...
- Hexstream 18y ago
  "The early use of the biological example was to inform us that flight was possible at all." If there had never been any birds, would(n't) we have invented planes eventually anyway?
  - davi 18y ago
    I bet we wouldn't have started thinking about it in the 9th century... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas
joe_the_user 18y ago
"I have an additional speculation: that a protein that was too stable would be hard to break down and re-use for spare parts, once it gets damaged by cellular metabolic products (or any of a number of other mechanisms). --- Drexler suggests that people designing protein machines should not be afraid to try to do things differently, and better, than biology. I agree." There's a hidden with this line of reasoning - by the first line of reason, it quite likely that a highly stable nano-machines would be toxic because it could not be broken down in the manner of a protein and would thus accumulate in the body if it operated similarly to a protein. It is just about guaranteed that any form of nanomachine you create would wide-up spread about the environment. Could be a problem.

23 points by ph0rque 18y ago

davi 18y ago

biology sets lower bounds for what is possible I was surprised when I evaluated this to be a true statement. As a biologist I'm used to marveling at how optimal everything seems in the natural world, and at how evolutionarily distant organisms converge on the same form given similarity between ecological niches. But take flight as an example: we can fly orders of magnitude faster than the fastest flying organism. The upper end of the biological case is the lower bound of what is possible. The early use of the biological example was to inform us that flight was possible at all. More directly related to the topic of the article, this New Yorker piece, on a new class of therapeutic compounds for correcting protein folding errors: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/04/090504fa_fact_groopman http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/04/090504fa_fact_...

Hexstream 18y ago
"The early use of the biological example was to inform us that flight was possible at all." If there had never been any birds, would(n't) we have invented planes eventually anyway?
- davi 18y ago
  I bet we wouldn't have started thinking about it in the 9th century... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas

joe_the_user 18y ago

"I have an additional speculation: that a protein that was too stable would be hard to break down and re-use for spare parts, once it gets damaged by cellular metabolic products (or any of a number of other mechanisms). --- Drexler suggests that people designing protein machines should not be afraid to try to do things differently, and better, than biology. I agree." There's a hidden with this line of reasoning - by the first line of reason, it quite likely that a highly stable nano-machines would be toxic because it could not be broken down in the manner of a protein and would thus accumulate in the body if it operated similarly to a protein. It is just about guaranteed that any form of nanomachine you create would wide-up spread about the environment. Could be a problem.