Startup aims at programmable molecular machines
from the when-matter-becomes-software dept.
engeneOS in Cambridge, MA states in a press release: "The company is developing Engineered Genomic Operating Systems to enable the design and construction of programmable Biomolecular Machines employing natural and artificial building blocks. These Biomolecular Machines will serve a broad range of commercial applications including biosensors, chemical synthesis and processing, bio-electronic devices and materials, nanotechnology [emphasis added]…" CP: The team list is impressive.
March 2nd, 2001 at 9:20 PM
Operating System?
Their web site lists a bunch of high powered biotech and chemistry guys, and one computer hardware guy, but nobody with a background in software. Unless they are just using the term "Operating System" as a marketing buzzword for some non-OS thing they are inventing, the team described seems a bit weak in its own necessary core competency. Are they really going to be in the business of creating an OS or is this just a fund raising ploy?
March 3rd, 2001 at 7:22 PM
Re:Operating System?
Well, one must remeber that electrical engineers designed and created the programmable logic of their systems in the form of assembly code, which was then used to create higher-level languages. The modrn computer programmer did not enter the picture until well after computational devices had been developed by these engineers. Thus, bio- and chemical engineers will rightfully design and develop the programmable intricacies of their systems, with the modern programmer only needing to learn this new coding language. Thus, I do not believe that it is necessary at all to have anybody with a software background at this stage in engeneOS's existence.
March 4th, 2001 at 7:38 AM
Re:Operating System?
The development path of machine language to assembly language to high level languages went hand-in-hand with the development of the hardware that supported it. The earliest computers in the '40s and '50's were programmed entirely in 1's and 0's (machine language). The instruction set of those computers presumably co-evolved with an understanding of what one wanted the computers to do and the capabilities of the hardware. For example the earliest computers had to implement multiply and divide in 'software'. That eventually got translated into the hardware as the capacities increased. That process continues today as we see Intel and others extending their instruction sets.
If you want to read a good book about how the machine architectures were wedded to the hardware capabilities, try: The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer .
The lack of software background will be limiting because programmers are used to thinking in terms of matching their code to the capabilities of the language at hand. The interesting part about biological systems is that the capabilities are intimately wrapped up in the structure of the biochemical pathways and the structures of the genome and proteins (for regulatory purposes). Yes, cellular systems have an "operating system" but we can't even read the code yet (~40% of the human genome consists genes of unknown function). The merging of the disciplines of biochemistry and computer science is going to yield a new field of genome engineering, but its going to require the development of much better tools than are now available to realize its full potential.
To realize the full potential of what they seem to be proposing, you have to do de novo protein design that seems pretty hard at this time.
March 4th, 2001 at 12:48 PM
Sounds familiar: Bitek?
Anyone else read Peter Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" series? This sounds an awful like the Bitek (biological technology) systems described in the series. Used for constructing artifical life forms, floating islands and even space stations.
While a bit weak on the capabilities of nanotechnology, he does recognise that the mostly technological and mostly biological branches of nanotechnology will exist side by side, interacting occasionaly.
He also fortells that public reaction against "Bitek" will verge on the religiously paranoid.
Vik :v)
March 4th, 2001 at 8:03 PM
Synthetic analogs to stem-cells
They do not have any technical details on thier site, but I have an idea of what they want to do. As you know, there is a lot of research being done with stem-cells, both adult and embryonic, and how they differentiate into various tissues. There is also alot of work being done with how cells communicate with each other to function in concert as a multi-cellular organism. This, combined with work aimed at creating purely "artificial" viruses in 5 years, can lead to a biotech-based nanotech where they create an "artificial stem-cell" that can differentiate into various "tissues" which, in turn, can develop into "artificial multi-cellular organisms" such as buildings and floating city-states (plant-like) or cars and airplanes (animal-like) based on how you program the progentitor "stem-cell". In otherwords, if you accept the notion of nanotech being synthetic, de novo biotech, then an assembler is really an artificial "stem-cell". For the "connective tissue", we need to develop a reaction mechanism that can be used by our "stem-cells" to produce carbon nanotubes.
If I had the technical background (chemistry,biotech, and nano-fabrication), I'd love to either join this company or start one of my own. It does actually sound like the "bitek" in Peter Hamilton's novels. However, I think the knowledge of stem-cells as biological development mechanisms are still not there, and there is much basic research to be done in developing synthetic analogs to the biochemical reactions that drive biology, such that they can be integrated into the artificial "stem-cell". So, I think it will be another 8-10 years before this technology can be commercialized. However, there are two things that can be said about it once it is available. One, that it will be the real nanotechnology and will be big in its impact and, two, that it will be largely based on solution-phase chemistry, just like biological systems.
March 11th, 2001 at 8:36 AM
Re:Sounds familiar: Bitek?
>Anyone else read Peter Hamilton's "Reality >Dysfunction" series? This sounds an awful like the Bitek (biological technology) systems >described in the series. Used for constructing >artifical life forms, floating islands and even >space stations.
His description of "Neural Nanonics" are
far more interesting than the Bitek stuff
IMHO
Orange Smølf.
March 11th, 2001 at 8:57 PM
sounds like Tom Knight's work
This sounds a lot like Tom Knight's work in what he calls microbial engineering. The goals and methods sound pretty much the same, the idea being to get to the point with tweaking and redesigning cells where it can be considered an engineering discipline. Knight is also in Cambridge so it'd be strange if there wasn't some connection. But I don't recognize the names in the article.