Medical nanorobots and their development

1. Medical nanorobots and their development Ralph C. Merkle Senior Fellow IMM

2. Goal: Make nanofactories to make medical nanorobots to keep us alive and healthy. Web pages www.MolecularAssembler.com/Nanofactory/ www.nanomedicine.com

3. Health, wealth and atoms

4. Experimental tools “…successive substitution of Sn atoms at the surface one atom at a time with Si atoms coming from the tip.” Science 17 October 2008: vol. 322. no. 5900, pp. 413 – 417. Custance Nanomechanics Group.

5. Theoretical tools tips HAbst HDon GM Germylene Methylene HTrans AdamRad DimerP GeRad A Minimal Toolset for Positional Diamond Mechanosynthesis Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience Vol.5, 760–861, 2008 by Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle

6. Tool properties • Starting from small feedstock molecules, a set of tools can: • make another set of tools • recharge all tools • make nanorobotic devices

7. Hydrocarbon bearing

8. Planetary gear

9. Positional assembly

10. Impact Nanomedicine • Disease and ill health are caused largely by damage at the molecular and cellular level • Today’s surgical tools are huge and imprecise in comparison

11. Impact Nanomedicine • In the future, we will have fleets of surgical tools that are molecular both in size and precision. • We will also have computers much smaller than a single cell to guide those tools.

12. Scale Size of a robotic arm ~100 nanometers 8-bit computer Mitochondrion ~1-2 by 0.1-0.5 microns

13. Scale Mitochondrion Robotic arm . Respirocyte Microbivore “Typical” cell: ~20 microns

14. Supply oxygen Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobil. Biotech.26(1998):411-430, by Robert A. Freitas Jr.

15. Digest bacteria Microbivores: Artificial Mechanical Phagocytes using Digest and Discharge Protocol J. Evol. Technol. 14(April 2005):55-106 by Robert A. Freitas Jr.

16. Replace chromosomes The Ideal Gene Delivery Vector: Chromallocytes, Cell Repair Nanorobots for Chromosome Replacement Therapy J. Evol. Technol. 16(June 2007):1-97 by Robert A. Freitas Jr. 2008 E-spaces and Robert A. Freitas Jr.

17. A strategy How Do We Get There From Here? Medical nanorobots can keep you alive Nanofactories can manufacture medical nanorobots How do we build a nanofactory? We have a plan

18. Our approach Backward chaining (Eric Drexler) Horizon mission methodology (John Anderson) Retrosynthetic analysis (Elias J. Corey) Shortest path and other search algorithms in computer science “Meet in the middle” attacks in cryptography

19. Focused nanofactory effort Core molecular manufacturing capabilities Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Nanorobots Products Memory Products Products Today Products Medical nanodevices Products The direct route Solar cells Products Products Molecular computers Products Products Products

20. Business as usual Core molecular manufacturing capabilities Products Products Products Products Products Products Products Nanorobots Products Memory Products Products Products Medical nanodevices Products Products Solar cells The winding path Products Products Molecular computers Products Products Products

21. Why invest? An exponential trend Is easy to accelerate when it’s small But hard to accelerate after it’s gotten big

22. Why invest? Price tag: ~$1,000,000 for the first two years Doubling every two years thereafter ~$1,000,000,000 over 20 years

23. End of talk END OF TALK

24. H abstraction Hydrogen abstraction from adamantane. -1.59 eV

25. H donation Hydrogen donation onto an adamantane radical. -0.60 eV

26. C placement C placement on C(111) using GM tool C radical addition to C radical -3.17 eV GeRad removal +2.76 eV (note Ge-C bond is “soft”) HDon hydrogenate C radical -0.70 eV

27. Summary • 9 tools • 100% process closure • Feedstock: C2H4, GeH4 • 65 reaction sequences • 328 reaction steps • 102,188 CPU-hours (1-GHz CPUs)

28. Replication Manufacturing costsper kilogramwill be low • Today: potatoes, lumber, wheat, etc. are all about a dollar per kilogram. • Tomorrow: almost any product will be about a dollar per kilogram or less. (Design costs, licensing costs, etc. not included)

29. Impact The impact of a new manufacturing technology depends on what you make

30. Impact Powerful Computers • We’ll have more computing power in the volume of a sugar cube than the sum total of all the computer power that exists in the world today • More than 1021 bits in the same volume • Almost a billion Pentiums in parallel

31. Impact Lighter, stronger, smarter, less expensive • New, inexpensive materials with a strength-to-weight ratio over 50 times that of steel • Critical for aerospace: airplanes, rockets, satellites… • Useful in cars, trucks, ships, ...

32. Nanomedicine Volume I • Nanosensors, nanoscale scanning • Power (fuel cells, other methods) • Communication • Navigation (location within the body) • Manipulation and locomotion • Computation • http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine • By Robert Freitas,

33. A revolution in medicine • Today, loss of cell function results in cellular deterioration: function must be preserved • With medical nanodevices, passive structures can be repaired: structure must be preserved

34. Cryonics Liquid nitrogen Temperature Time

35. Payoff matrix It works It doesn't Experimental group www.alcor.org A very long and healthy life Die, lose life insurance Control group Die Die

36. Annotated bibliography on diamond mechanosynthesis Molecular tools http://www.molecularassembler.com/ Nanofactory/AnnBibDMS.htm (over 50 entries)