This volume provides an excellent survey of the state of the art in protein engineering, covering topics ranging from protein analysis to the use of neural network techniques in protein sequence design. Taken as a whole, it offers a good picture both of the achievements to date and of the challenges that remain. As a bonus, the last chapter (by Nadrian Seeman, a speaker at the second Foresight Conference) describes achievements in the engineering of three-dimensional structures from nucleic acids.
Readers with a background in chemistry or molecular biology will find this book a valuable introduction to biomolecular engineering, which may prove to be a key step on the path to advanced nanotechnologies. Its focus on achievable steps that are on today's research agenda will suggest practical career moves for those with their eyes on the road ahead.
-Eric Drexler
Experiment Zukunft: Die Nanotechnologische Revolution, by K. Eric Drexler, Chris Peterson, with Gayle Pergamit, Addison Wesley, 1995, 320 pages, hardcover. German edition of Unbounding the Future.
Technotrends by Daniel Burrus, HarperBusiness, 1994, paperback. Gives "24 technologies that will revolutionize our lives," but does not get nanotechnology quite right. Confuses the current ability to design and build molecules (e.g. new enzymes) and the coming ability to design and build molecularly-precise materials. Confuses micromechanics (mechanics) with quantum structures (electronics). Author is "one of the world's leading technology forecasters," and his basic point -- the importance of emerging technologies to business -- is excellent. Let's educate him further.
From the back cover of the book: A fascinating journey through the microscopic world of nanotechnology and its macroscopic implications
Complex mechanical devices with feature sizes on the molecular scale and with all the power of today's supercomputers; diamond and other ultrastrong building materials‹and all of this accessible through low-cost automated molecular manufacturing. We've all read about the vast potential of nanotechnology. Some theorists have hailed it as the most important technological breakthrough since steam power. But how far have we really come to realizing any of that potential? And how have recent developments in the field already begun to shape the world of the twenty-first century?
Now this discussion-oriented book takes you to the front lines of nanotechnology theory and practice to provide answers to these and other questions. Featuring contributions from a number of international top names in the field, it offers a provocative look into a future shaped by nanotechnological applications and also provides an overview of the enabling technologies that are in current use in a variety of industries, and which will be important in attaining this breakthrough technology.
Markus Krummenacker, a former researcher at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, now working with Nanothinc, a San Francisco-based company.
James Lewis, Ph.D., is a scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Seattle. Dr. Lewis is author of more than forty scientific research publications in biochemistry, virology, and molecular biology.
Contents:
Foreword by K. Eric Drexler
Introduction to Nanotechnology by K. Eric Drexler
Design-Ahead for Nanotechnology by Ralph C. Merkle
Designing Molecular Components by Ted Kaehler
Biotechnology as an Enabling Technology by Martin Edelstein
Modeling and Remodeling Molecules by Michael Pique
Paths to Nanotechnology by Howard Landman
Today's New Materials: Atomic Control in One Dimension by Michael Kelly
Diamond Growth: Today and Tomorrow by Michael Pinneo
Nanotechnology: Evolution of the Concept by Christine L. Peterson
Virtual Molecular Reality by Marvin Minsky
Molecular Manufacturing as a Path to Space by K. Eric Drexler
Nanotechnology Research and Development Sponsorship by Neil Jacobstein
Nanotechnology in Japan by Charles Sweet
The Politics of Technology in the United States: The Background for the Coming Era of Nanotechnology Politics by James C. Bennett
Nanotech: A Venture Perspective by John Doerr
The Open Society and its Media by Mark S. Miller
Index
The $49.95 hardcover (ISBN 0-471-30914-1) can be ordered directly from the publisher at 800-225-5945 or from Foresight (request order form: tel 415-917-1122, fax 415-917-1123, email office@foresight.org).
Most Foresight conferences have been highly technical, but those of you who attended the 1992 General Conference will recall that it was specifically designed for those not engaged in research, covering the topic of nanotechnology for the non-technical participant.
There was some confusion at the meeting: the press‹expecting a research conference‹did not know what to make of it, and the background level of knowledge of the participants varied widely. Still, many Foresight members enjoyed the event tremendously and asked for more.
The annual Senior Associates Gathering, begun formally in 1994, provides the value of the former General Conference with the following improvements: (1) we do not look for press coverage; in fact, the meeting is regarded as off-the-record, to encourage freer discussion, and (2) the level of knowledge and commitment of participants is kept high by drawing from the Senior Associates groups of Foresight, IMM, and CCIT. This also keeps the size of the group down to a level that enables a more intense, interactive meeting. Participants are expected to have read Engines of Creation or Unbounding the Future.
The 1995 Gathering will take place on November 11-12 in the Bay Area. Those wishing to participate who are not already Senior Associates can request a Senior Associate information package from the Foresight office. Senior Associates make a five-year pledge of $250, $500, or $1000 annually.
For a Senior Associate information package, contact Foresight at tel 415-917-1122; fax 415-917-1123; or email office@foresight.org.
Molecular Machinery Analysis
Robertson, Dunlap, Brenner, Mintmire, and White at NRL described simulations of atomically perfect fullerene gears. They designed 5-8 sprocket gears with 290-4 64 atoms. A six-tooth gear was extended with a fullerene shaft to simulate the shaft that would conduct mechanical power in a complete machine. Simulations of power transmission from one gear to another were done with a reactive potential, so the simulation verified that the bonds in the structure would withstand the forces applied. During one simulation, one gear spun up the other from a standing start to 20 gigarev/sec in a quarter of a turn. In addition, the overall binding energies of the gears were calculated. They were uniformly found to be more stable (per atom) than C60. [Novel Forms of Carbon II 283-288]
In experimental news on fullerene systems, Lüthi et al measured unusually low friction (a shear strength of 0.05 to 0.1 megapascal) between C60 islands and an NaCl substrate using a scanning force microscope. They note that "These results could find use in the field of nanotechnology; for example, C60 islands could be developed into a sled-type transport system on the nanometer scale." [S cience 266: 1979-1981, 23Dec94]
In more general news on friction, Singer wrote a review article on studies of friction at the level of molecular mechanics simulations. Oddly, there is almost no overlap with Drexler's analysis in Nanosystems. The investigations described are all of much more dissipative systems than would be desirable for mature nanotechnology. The dominant dissipation mechanism in evidence is irreversible merging of potential wells (ideally confined to erasure of bits, but occurring here whenever methyl groups pass each other on a surface). At the level of accuracy relevant in this paper, "Low friction, including zero friction, can be a chieved at low loads, with weak surface interactions and with "small" atoms at the interface." The extensions suggested for current work are towards pushing the length and time scales upwards to better predict current macroscopic systems, rather than to optimize microscopic systems. The analysis is interesting for contemporary lubrication systems, and may be important for analysis of early protein machines, but hopefully these mechanisms will be designed out of mature nanomachines. [J.Vac.Sci.Tech.A 12(5) 2605-2616, Sep/Oct 1994]
Molecular Motors
Friction is important once one has a means to move things at all. One approach to supplying energy for movement is to use chemical energy sources. An analysis paper by Magnasco provides a general framework for calculating the properties of "Molecular Combustion Motors." Magnasco describes molecular motors with a pot ential energy surface on two coordinates: the reaction coordinate for fuel burning, and the mechanical movement coordinate. Given this potential surface, this paper describes how to calculate fuel consumption rate, speed of movement as a function of load, and so on. There is an interesting analogy made for the losses due to thermally activated slipping on the potential energy landscape. "It is evident that thermal noise will allow the gears to slide over each other, not unlike actual engine transmission coupling through transmission fluid before the teeth actually lock." [Phys. Rev. Let. 72: 2656-2659, 18Apr9 4]
In more concrete work on a specific motor system, a paper by Spudich describes work on the myosin motor in biological systems. He describes the current understanding of the chemical kinetics of this molecule, how some structural features of the molecule affect reaction rate, and where in the reaction cycle the rate limiting effects appear. For nanotech applications the coupling between chemical energy and mechanical energy will continue to be useful, but some more precise mechanism to single-step the motor will be necessary in order to use it for atomically precise operations. Thermally activated ADP desorbtion won't be sufficiently precise for that application. He also describes a laser-trap system which allowed observation of single steps of 10-20nm, and forces of 7 pN.
Spudich also points out that "laser-trap technology allows many types of measure ments that could be applied to virtually any protein. For example, the elasticity of a protein molecule can now be measured directly, and conformational changes associated with transitions between states are within reach of being explored. " This capability sounds promising; however, there may be considerable duplicat ion between this technique and AFM, which probes similar ranges of parameters. [Nature 372: 515-518, 8Dec94]
Protein Design and Synthesis
Proteins offer us a great deal of synthetic flexibility today. We have well-tested methods for building custom proteins, both biologically based and chemically based. These methods, however, let us select the primary structure of a protein: the sequence of amino acid residues within it. In order to use a protein as part of a structure, or to place groups within it in some pattern in space in order to control a reaction or bind to some substrate, we must control the secondary and tertiary structure of the protein: how it folds and assembles itself in space. We must go "from structure to sequence."
Steven Brenner and Alan Berry have written a program to help systematically select amino acid sequences designed to fold in a prespecified way. Their program relies primarily on the statistics of the structures of known natural proteins. It takes a desired structure as an input, which specifies which parts of the amino acid sequence are in what types of secondary structures (alpha-helices, beta sheets, and so on) and how much each residue is exposed to the solvent. The program uses simulated annealing to pick sequences of amino acids which match the c onformational preferences, the neighbor preferences, and the solvent accessibilities of the protein database. Another bias-term in the process selects for "diverse" sequences, those where the overall frequencies of residues in the sequence match the frequencies in the database. The justification for this nonstructural term is that it biases the designed sequences against designs that would fold in too many ways. One needs to avoid designing proteins that fold in the way that one wants...but fold even more stably in some other way. The sequences that were designed were tested by computer analysis in an independent program, and their predicted structures compared with the intended structure. [Protein Scie nce 3: 1871-1882, 1994]
There have been a number of experimental protein design papers recently:
A group at Lausanne, Switzerland, assembled and demonstrated the function of an ion channel built from 4 copies of a natural peptide covalently linked to a 10 residue "template" peptide. In this design the peptide bonds to NH2 side chains of lysine residues in the template provide the structure that is typically provided by protein folding in ordinary proteins. The group was able to measure the conductances from single channels. One somewhat disturbing note is that "Three different channel states (called O1, O2 and O3) can be clearly distinguished." The channel states seem to imply that several active states are thermodynamically accessible, which would be unfortunate if we wish to exploit stable, unique structures for protein designs. [Protein Science 3: 1788-1805, 19 94]
Munson et al. redesigned the 4-helix-bundle protein Rop. They repacked the hydrophobic core, achieving better thermal stability than in the original protein. The redesign was done by examining packing effects in space-filling molecular models. The protein consists of two copies of a 63-residue chain. Several modified versions of this protein were designed, with 7 and 9 residues changed in two versions. The revised protein was produced biologically. The 50% denaturing temperature was raised from 74.6C to 87.2C and 95.4C in two variants. Energy minimization of the modified proteins gave backbones which were "superimposable on the wild-type backbone." This showed that the energetics of the hydrophobic core were well explained by space filling considerations. [Protein Scienc e 3: 2015-2022, 1994]
Fezoui, Weaver, and Osterhout described how they designed a 38-residue peptide in 1990. Their peptide was designed to have a simple, predictable tertiary structure. It consists of two helices covalently linked by a hairpin turn. The two helices were designed to have mutually stabilizing hydrophobic regions where they touched. A noteworthy constraint on the design was avoiding undesired aggregation between copies of the peptides. This set an upper bound on how large the hydrophobic region of the peptides could be. This is somewhat discouraging for designing multi-peptide structures, since the desirable structures for bonding the peptides together include hydrophobic regions, which will tend to destabilize the individual peptides and tend to make them form undesired aggregates before they are mixed to form the desired ones. After the design of the hydropho bic regions in this design, charged residues were selected to form salt bridges between the two helices to further stabilize the structure. In the last step of the design, 12 remaining residues were selected, including a fluorescent donor and acceptor. These last residues were constrained to be good helix formers. Three residues met this contraint, so roughly 3 to the twelfth possibilities remain for this design after all of the constraints are met.
The authors also describe the degree of structural success that they had. "CD experiments indicate that the peptide is approximately 60% helical at room temperature (89% of the residues are in the helical regions of the peptide), suggesting that the helices are slightly frayed and/or that the peptide is in equilibrium with unfolded, nonhelical conformations." The authors goals for further work in the field are consistent with the requirements of nanotechnology in that they are looking for more rigid structures. "...a major focus of the protein design field must be upon how to achieve protein designs with more rigid protein-like interiors." This is a requirement even for improving the quality of feedback about designs: "It is hoped that relatively simple notions of space filling can be used to design molecules that will exhibit enough structure to characterize by high-resolution techniques (NMR and X-ray diffraction)." [Protein Science 4: 286-295, 1995]
In supramolecular chemistry, Jin and Wells have shown that attractiveness is only about one residue deep, yet it is hard to graft. They studied the affinities of a series of antibodies to a series of mutated antigens and found that only a small number of residues on the antigens account for the bulk of the binding energy. They found that "...on average only 3-5 side chains could account for more than 80% of the binding..." There are x-ray studies to contrast these with, and they show far more residues physically in contact, "14-21 residues on each side." Jin and Wells were able to mutate as many as 16 neighboring residues to alanine without lowering the affinity by more than a factor of 10, while changing a single one of the 5 primary residues "caused a 6- to >500-fold reduction in affinity." While this appears to indicate that intermolecular affinity should be comparatively easy to produce, grafting the critical residues on to another antigen only worked when it was homologous to the original antigen. [Protein Science 3: 2351-2357, 1994]
Organic Chemistry
In classical organic chemistry, Nicolaou and co-workers have synthesized Brevetoxin B. The molecule consists of 11 fused rings (all of which are cyclic ethers) with 23 stereocenters. The synthesis required 33 man-years by 25 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows spread across 12 calendar years. There are 83 steps in the synthesis, with an average yield for each step of 91%, and an overall yield of 0.043%. "The synthetic strategy was a convergent one, in which large parts of the molecule were preassembled and then combined." [C&EN 32- 33, 30Jan95]
In another synthetic note, Lagow et al. synthesized carbyne rods "with chain lengths in excess of 300 carbon atoms." The longest chains were produced by alternately condensing CF3 radicals from a C2F6 RF discharge and laser vaporized graphite on the walls of a glass reactor. The rods are not particularly reactive. They were dissolved in THF and toluene during the course of analysis. Related model compounds could be crystallized and heated to 130C before polymerizing. Unfortunately, attempts to separate some related reaction mixtures on the types of columns (Al2O3) used to separate fullerenes did not separate them, but rather they reacted with the column. I wish them better luck in future separation efforts. If we can separate U235 from U238, surely there must be some way to separate F3C(CC)150CF3 from F3C(CC)151CF3. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see that the rods used in the original rod logic proposal are in fact quite stable at room temperature, even without any solid matrix to prevent collisions. Useful mechanical components may be available right down to the limit of chemically plausible structures. [Science 267: 362-367, 20Jan95]
Jeffrey Soreff is a researcher at IBM with an interest in nanotechnology.
by Elizabeth Enayati
In the last issue of Foresight Update, I discussed the mechanics of what changes are imminent in US patent law under the Uruguay Rounds Agreement Act (or the GATT Implementation Act). Now that you have had a chance to mull over the nuts and bolts of those changes, I want to highlight some important issues raised by the new laws that specifically concern the nanotechnology disciplines.
20-year Term. As you may recall, the present US patent system grants patent rights to the first inventor for a period of 17 years measured from the date the patent issues. The US patent system also includes some mechanisms for filing a patent application on DAY1 (e.g., July 1, 1990), and then subsequently adding new data and information by filing a second patent application (known as a continuation-in-part application) on DAY2 (e.g., July 15, 1991), while preserving the original DAY1 filing date. It is possible to file an entire string of patent applications in this manner so that the patent that eventually issues contains all or a portion of the first application, and all or a portion of subsequent gene rations of that application. This could potentially continue for years. In a first hypothetical, let's say the first application is filed on July 1, 1990, a final continuation-in-part application is filed on July 1, 1994, and a patent issues on August 1, 1995. In this first hypothetical, and under the current US patent law, the patent holder is entitled to a maximum of a 17 year term, beginning the day the patent issues (i.e., August 1, 1995) and ending on August 1, 2012.
Now, in a second hypothetical, suppose the last application is filed on July 1, 1995 (as you may recall, the new 20-year patent term applies to patent applications filed on or after June 8, 1995), and issues as a patent on June 1, 1996. The patent holder in that instance would obtain a patent with a maximum term of 20 years as measured from July 1, 1990 (the date of the first US patent application filing date). Since patent rights are not enforceable until the patent issues (that does not change under the new law), the patent holder has lost three years off of the patent term (i.e., 17 years under the current law less 14 years under the new law).
So what does this mean? In a research setting, such as at a university, there is a tremendous amount of incentive, if not actual pressure, for scientists to publish the results of their research. As a consequence of this "publish or perish" system, in conjunction with the heightened awareness at most research institutes of the tremendous monetary value royalties bring to the institution based on proprietary technology developed by their faculty and staff, patent applications historically were filed on early-stage research. The idea was to file early, then take advantage of the patent system by filing continuation-in-part applications adding data and other information to the application to make any resulting patent a fiscally, if not commercially valuable resource.
However, if patent terms now are to be calculated from the earliest US priority date for that patent, inventors who file early may lose valuable time at the enforcement end. The decision whether or not to file a patent application will require a balancing of even more competing interests: scientists' interests in making their work public versus institutes' interest in obtaining broad patent rights that will bring significant royalties for as many years as possible. Because patent applications in each discipline have different pendency periods in the Patent Office (e.g., several years for biotechnology patents, even longer for "pioneering patents," and a couple of years for mechanical, most chemical, and electrical patents), the type of technology involved also will be a factor in deciding the timing for filing a patent application. Whether this will "promote the arts and useful sciences," as mandated by the US Constitution, or ultimately stifle early dissemination of such "useful sciences" remains to be seen once the new law has been in effect a few years.
Provisional patent applications. In an attempt to compromise with institutions, due to the perceived inequities formed by the new patent term, as described above, the new patent law creates a new type of patent application: the "Provisional Patent Application." This new application is touted as an inexpensive alte rnative to a "complete" patent application, and is expected to have a filing fee of as little as $75 (the filing fee for a complete application is at least $365 ). As represented by the US Patent Office, an applicant may file a Provisional Application to preserve an early filing date, and will have up to 12 months from that filing date within which to file both a complete US application and any foreign applications, effectively deferring the full costs of patent filing for 12 months, without losing any time off the 20 year term.
Unfortunately, as with most bargains, Provisional Applications are not such a great bargain. As a starter, there is a requirement that the Provisional Application satisfy all of the statutory requirements of enablement and best mode (35 U. S.C. [[section]] 112). In fact, the only significant advantage of the Provisional Application is that it may be filed without a single claim. However, since the claims define the invention, and the application must contain sufficient disclosure to enable the claimed invention, most applicants will need to draft at least one claim just to determine whether the rest of the application satisfies the statute! Thus, an applicant will need to spend nearly the same amount in patent attorney fees to file a valid Provisional Application as that applicant would spend to file a complete application at the outset.
It is a rumor that some law firms are offering to file Provisional Applications for low, flat rate fees (I have heard the number $1,000 more than once in connec tion with such applications). However, if the Provisional Application is not carefully reviewed to verify that it satisfies the substantive statutory requirements, any patent that may subsequently issue and that relies on the priority date of that Provisional Application, risks significant enforcement issues down the road. Although Provisional Applications may be a useful tool in patent portfolio management, beware that such applications also may be significant traps for the unwary and may signficantly undermine the strength of an issued patent relying on such an application.
In the nanotechnology disciplines, the change in US patent law highlights an issue that most in the field grapple with on a fairly routine basis: the conflict between protecting proprietary information and dedicating such information to the public domain; i.e., patent versus publish. The new law presents even more challenges to those inventors making such decisions. Much, but certainly not all, of nanotechnology research involves ground-breaking or pioneering technology. However, the ability to obtain significant proprietary protection for such technology under the new law will present new challenges. Fundamental to the question of when to protect is the question of how to protect. I plan to address that issue in the next Law in Technology column. Your comments on these topics always are welcome.
(c) 1995 E. Enayati
Elizabeth Enayati, an attorney with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, can be contacted at tel (415) 926-6248; fax (415) 854-3713; email eenayati@mcimail.com; or send mail c/o Foresight Institute, PO Box 61058, Palo Alto, CA 94306.
"Legal Problems of Nanotechnology: An Overview," by Frederick A. Fiedler and Glenn H. Reynolds, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, Vol.3, No.2, pp. 593-629.
Fiedler and Reynolds have produced the first law journal article examining nanotechnology issues, including some early thoughts on the direction regulation might take. Reynolds, a law professor at University of Tennessee, has been following nanotechnology issues for many years through his involvement with the National Space Society. Fiedler, an MD and law student, brings a strong medical perspective to the piece.
The authors start with a layman's introduction to the technology itself, then explain the dangers of both under- and over-regulation. Readers of Foresight Update will already be familiar with potential dangers caused by abuse or accidents; we may be less aware of the dangers of over-regulation, partly because these are harder to see.
For me, the paper's most vivid point is its explanation that "the British Explosives Act of 1875, which forbade all private rocketry experimentation, caused British rocketry enthusiasts to fall behind others--like American Robert Goddard and the German Wernher von Braun--with dramatic results." Dramatic, indeed--now there's an understatement. The lesson for nanotechnology: to the extent regulation is needed, implementing it in one country is not the answer.
"As Cass Sunstein notes, 'Stringent regulation of new risks can increase aggregate risk levels'...The reason is that new technologies, which in general tend to be safer than old technologies, are often subjected to more stringent regulation simply because they are new. The result is often the perpetuation of riskier (but politically more powerful) existing industries at the expense of safer new technologies that do not have a built-up base of political support."
Potential medical applications and related regulatory issues receive extensive attention: will medical nanotechnology treatments be viewed as drugs or devices? Medical misuse is discussed, along with some of the more radical medical applications such as very long-term life extension.
On intellectual property issues: "In a world in which nearly any object could be manufactured on-site from inexpensive materials, the only really worthwhile property rights may be in intellectual or cultural property. Even if objects can be 'home-grown' using general purpose manufacturing devices employing nanotechnology, the 'plans' for constructing such objects will still be valuable. We may see a near-complete separation of design and manufacturing, at least in some fields. If that is the case, intellectual property in software, designs, and so on will become far more valuable, and criminal sanctions against, say, 'counterfeit' designer goods are likely to be much greater. Likewise, unique objects like oil paintings, handcrafts, and so on may become far more valuable even if indistinguishable from machine-made duplicates, simply because they are scarce."
Many other effects of nanotechnology are touched on in this high-level overview- -far more than can be covered here. We suggest a visit to your nearest law library.
--Chris Peterson
Chemical & Engineering News (April 17) covered work by Peter Schultz and Paul McEuen at UC Berkeley combining proximal probe techniques with molecular self-assembly: making an AFM tip into a precision catalysis device by coating the tip with platinum. C&EN points out that this is a step toward "nano manufacturing": "carrying out highly localized chemical catalysis to create high -resolution structures on a surface." A quote from IMM's Eric Drexler terms the work "fascinating."
NPR's popular "All Things Considered" radio program discussed work done by a group of scientists studying friction at the atomic scale. They reported that friction operates very differently at the atomic scale. (For a theoretical description of the differences between friction at the macroscale vs. at the nanoscale, see Nanosystems.)
Receiving wide coverage were speculations on "the technological breakthrough which will have the biggest impact in the next 50 years" forecasted by the National Engineers week "All-Stars," a diverse team of men and women which included corporate executives, astronauts, elected officials, heads of government agencies, President Clinton's science advisor, and engineers in nontraditional fields like sports and entertainment. The All-Stars were surveyed in conjunction with National Engineers Week. From the NewsEDGE wire service:
"Nanotechnology and biotechnology may, according to these experts, rival the continuing communications revolution in shaping day-to-day life in the first half o f the 21st century...When it came to predicting the next major technological achievement, both J. Winston Porter, president of the Waste Policy Center and the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's efforts on solid waste, and Wesley Harris, associate administrator for aeronautics with NASA, found common ground in nanotechnology. They expect these tools, working on the molecular scale, to perform sophisticated new tasks, especially in medicine."
A World Wide Web essay on nanotechnology was published as part of the mid-April online magazine HotWired. Author Chris Peterson was interviewed online on April 19 by HotWired readers. The publication has given permission for Foresight to post this essay at the Foresight Web site, which should be operating by June.
Newsweek's May 1 issue included a column by Steven Levy on Adleman's DNA "computer," closing with "While we're struggling to assimilate the effects of the breakthroughs we've already seen, those damn innovators keep coming up with new ones. If biology and computers truly join forces, though, the changes will probably be so pervasive that no one will be able to escape them. The speculation ranges from supermedicines to nanotechnological 'assemblers' that rearrange atoms as easily as Lego blocks. So brace yourselves..."
Coverage in the UK included articles in The Times (Feb. 27) and The Independent Magazine (March 18).
A timing prediction from Government Technology (March): fully-implemented nanotechnology will be widespread in 40 years. Longer than Foresight's guesses , but close enough for government work?
Computation-rich, adaptive, self-organizing nanotechnology products are described in The Futurist's January-February article on the "nanoplastics" design work of Prof. Charles Owen and students at the Illinois Institute of Technology . This is a picture of the effects of nanotechology on daily life.
And in a belated mention, Robert Malone, Editor of Managing Automation, d escribed nanotechnology in his December column entitled "Honey, I Shrunk the Factory," stating "It is very difficult to argue with these future directions given what has already happened and what is being tested in labs around the world. We might do well to start thinking of the impact on jobs, design and manufacture, distribution, and business in general. Small manufacturing units with enormous intelligence could change the way we live, work, and organize our industries. It could also impact energy use, the need for transportation, and communication technology. What used to be bread and butter for science fiction is now becoming grist for the mills of reality."
Speaking of fiction: The Diamond Age, a nanotechnology-based novel by Neal Stephenson, is receiving positive reviews in the press and by Foresight members.
Finally, taking the prize for oddest media mention is Reed's Security Reporter (March), which credits nanotechnology for making possible a new type of lock now on sale.
We realized recently that it is getting to be a challenge even to keep track of all of those who should be thanked in each issue: there are so many now. Here are a few not credited elsewhere in this issue:
Thanks to Senior Associates Marc Arnold and Chris Portman for making the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology possible this year.
Thanks to Jim Lewis and James Gallagher for being the first to donate to the Web Enhancement Project.
Thanks to Elaine Tschorn, our new contractor, for so rapidly straightening out Foresight's bookkeeping. We're very glad to have her with us. Thanks to Gayle Pergamit for recruiting Elaine.
Thanks to Niehaus Ryan Haller Public Relations for their ongoing assistance to Foresight's efforts to educate the public via the media. Just now, this work is focused on the fall conference and the Feynman Prize.
Thanks to Bob Schumaker for his help in getting our database to handle accent marks in foreign addresses correctly.
Thanks to Global Business Network for bringing their members to up to date on nanotechnology at their Annual Forum.
Thanks to the ever-larger group of Web participants and experts who are advising Foresight's Web Enhancement Project. Thanks to Senior Associates Jim Gallagher and Jim Lewis for kicking off the fundraising effort on this project.
Thanks as always to the many members who help make sure that we see as many relevant articles and other forms of information as possible: Serge Avila, Jake Cart er, Jeff Cavener, William Cooper, David Cornell, Brian Cox, Allan Drexler, Dave Forrest, Tom Glass, Jones Hamilton, Fred Hapgood, Aleksander Herman, Graham Houston, Stan Hutchings, Seán Jackson, Anthony Johnson, Marie-Louise Kagan, S tephen Kramer, Kevin Lacobie, Tom McKendree, Scott MacLaren, Joy Martin, Russ Mills, Anthony Napier, Bryn Ostby, Mark Reiners, Jim Rice, Steve Vetter, Kai Wu.
In our last issue, we suggested contacting Future Quest for videotape copies of their program on nanotechnology. Now we learn from member Jake Carter that these tapes will not be ready for months. The company suggested that interested members ask their local public television station to air the show again, and tape it during that showing. Or, you can wait a few months and contact Future Quest, Producers Entertainment Group, 9150 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 205, Beverly Hills, CA 90212 (note corrected address).
Industrial Robot, a publication from the UK, described nanotechnology work in the UK and France in an article titled "Nanotechnology Update" (Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 33-34). Foresight and our Feynman Prize were covered as well. However, it's clear that in Europe the word nanotechnology is predominantly used to describe top-down technologies which are not molecularly precise, along with some proximal probe work. These primarily top-down groups include the LINK Nanotechnology Programme (part of the UK's National Initiative on Nanotechnology), the Nanotechology Forum, and France's Club Nanotechnologie. We're looking into these and will have more coverage in later issues.
The following is an excerpt from the January 31, 1995, testimony of Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, before Senate subcommittee on Science, Technology and Spac e:
As device miniaturization progresses toward 2015, we will soon need to build and characterize devices whose typical size is just a few atomic diameters. There currently are profound limitations to our ability to measure, fabricate, characterize, and understand atomic scale devices. NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] has begun a new nanotechnology initiative specifically to enhance our current capabilities to make and study nano-structured materials.