Chapter category: Nanomedicine
Pathways to Molecular Manufacturing
Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities
Edited by: Robert A. Freitas, Jr.ISBN: 1-57059-680-8
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Chapter authors:
Robert A. Freitas
Most contemporary industrial fabrication processes are based on “top-down” technologies, wherein small objects are sawn or machined from larger objects, or small features are imposed on larger objects, in either case by removing unwanted matter. The results of such processes may be small, such as micron-featured integrated circuits, or very large, such as jet aircraft, but in most cases the material is being processed in chunks far larger than molecular scale. Molecular manufacturing, on the other hand, represents a “bottom-up” technology. Desired products will be built directly by “assembler” machines, molecule by molecule, making larger and larger objects with atomic precision. The results of such processes may also be very small or very large, much as biology builds both micron-sized bacteria and 100-meter tall sequoia trees. However, since assemblers add matter only where it is intended, little need be removed and hence there may be minimal waste during the process. By guiding with precision the assembly of molecules and supramolecular structures, such a manufacturing system could construct an extraordinarily wide range of products of unprecedented quality and performance.
Additional chapters from this book:
Other Basic Capabilities
Robert A. Freitas
This final Chapter describes a miscellany of important technical capabilities that may prove useful in some or all medical nanodevices, in various scenarios or theaters of operation. Any one of the...
Manipulation and Locomotion
Robert A. Freitas
Manipulation and mobility are crucial basic capabilities in most classes of medical nanodevices. Manipulation includes handling fluids, biological objects such as tissue matrix fibers or cellular e...
Navigation
Robert A. Freitas
It is difficult to imagine any significant application of medical nanodevices which does not involve navigation, however crude. Devices intended to monitor somatic states, assemble artificial inter...
Communication
Robert A. Freitas
Communication is an important fundamental capability of medical nanorobots. At the most basic level, nanomachines must pass sensory and control data among internal subsystems to ensure stable and c...
Power
Robert A. Freitas
Device energetics may represent the most serious limitation in nanorobot design. Almost all medical nanodevices will be actively powered. Mechanical motions, pumping, chemical transformations and t...
Shapes and Metamorphic Surfaces
Robert A. Freitas
It has been asserted that nanomechanical systems fundamentally differ from systems of biological molecular machinery in their basic architecture—specifically, that nanomechanical components are sup...
Nanosensors and Nanoscale Scanning
Robert A. Freitas
Medical nanorobots need to acquire information from their environment to properly execute their assigned tasks. Such acquisition is achieved using onboard nanoscale sensors, or nanosensors, of vari...
Molecular Transport and Sortation
Robert A. Freitas
The human body consists of ~7 x 1027 atoms arranged in a highly aperiodic physical structure. Although 41 chemical elements are commonly found in the body’s construction (Table 3.1), CHON comprises...
Pathways to Molecular Manufacturing
Robert A. Freitas
Most contemporary industrial fabrication processes are based on “top-down” technologies, wherein small objects are sawn or machined from larger objects, or small features are imposed on larger obje...
The Prospect of Nanomedicine
Robert A. Freitas
The history of disease is vastly older than that of humankind itself. Indeed, disease and parasitism have been inseparable companions to life since the dawn of life on Earth. Fossilized bacteria si...
