Fly-sized robots aimed at surgery

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=378391


Fly-sized robots aimed at surgery

Robots the size of flies controlled by computers smaller than grains of salt could be with us within two years.

A prototype "millibot" is being built to see if scientists can miniaturise to the scale of a nanometre – a millionth of a millimetre – to build intelligent materials and microscopic machines.

James Ellenbogen of the Mitre Corporation told the association that the first insect-like robot – a motorised silicon chip with six legs – could be built by the end of 2004.
"Once we decide on the right fit, I'd be pleased as punch if we had one next year that would scuttle across the table and avoid objects," he said.

The aim is to build computers that could fit on a grain of salt, composed of memory devices as small as a human cell. "We have prototype circuits for this, it is very real... The system we are building is a memory system.

What we are really worried about is increasing the density of mass storage," said Dr Ellenbogen."What you would have done essentially is to shrink the memory of an old PC into the space of about eight human cells."

One of Dr Ellenbogen's aims is to design robots that could perform surgery within the human body.

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http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=3097

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http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2000/07/31/story3.html


From the July 28, 2000 print edition
Zyvex pioneers surging field of nano-tech
Jeff Bounds Staff Writer

RICHARDSON -- When Jim Von Ehr II looks into his crystal ball, he sees amazing possibilities.




Like turning lumps of coal into diamonds. Or building tiny machines that could venture inside the human body to diagnose and cure disease.



Two years ago, Von Ehr started a Richardson company, Zyvex, that was the first in the world to attempt turning that type of science fiction into commercial reality. Doubted at first, Von Ehr today is finding more and more converts to the promising field known as nanotechnology.



"We think that once the technology exists, we can manufacture most objects for the cost of the materials, plus the energy," he says.



Simply put, nanotechnology involves building things atom by atom, rather than using nature's materials like water and carbon as the building blocks, the method used since time immemorial. Researchers say nanotechnology could lead to a host of revolutionary innovations -- from automobiles weighing just 400 pounds to nearly cost-free manufacturing that produces virtually no pollution.



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Nanotechnology could eventually lead to an economy based on solar energy, Von Ehr says. Researchers in St. Louis are now working on a nanotechnology-based power source that blocks the sun's ultra-violet light, for instance. A separate, similarly based effort is under way in Southern California to develop rocket fuel that burns 10 times faster than is currently possible.



Such efforts have produced a quiet surge of interest in nanotechnology in academic, government and corporate circles.



Big companies like Hewlett-Packard and International Business Machines are conducting research in nanotechnology. And Congress is contemplating a request from a consortium of federal agencies, including NASA and the Department of Defense, for a $500 million nanotechnology research budget.



To understand why, consider a research effort at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. There, a team led by Dr. James Baker is building so-called nanodevices that may eventually be used to fight cancer. So small that billions can fit on a single cell, the nanodevices may eventually be able to detect and fight various cancers, Baker believes.



After being injected into the body, the nanodevices would latch onto cancer cells and help kill them. That could be used to avoid heavy-duty anti-cancer treatments like chemotherapy -- or even for early detection. "The real key is to get the tumor and leave the rest of the person alone," Baker says.



Baker plans to begin testing the devices on animals in eight months. Clinical trials, which will probably be focused initially on breast cancer, could begin in a few years, he says.


Computer applications

Overall, it will probably be five years before such practical, cost-effective applications emerge from nanotechnology.



James Tour, a chemistry professor at Rice University, says researchers have already built the two fundamental elements of a computer chip -- switches and memory -- at the molecular level. Switches turn electricity on and off, which in turn produces the the computer's "language."



Since chips are the engines driving computers and most every other electronic device, so-called "molecular computing" could enable electronics to shrink to heretofore unimaginable levels. It could also help provide the chip industry with a potential solution to the physical limitations it has encountered in the ongoing effort to cram more and more computing power into silicon chips.



A larger goal, though, is building so-called nanocomputers, which would be cheaper than machines using current chip technology. Before that happens, however, researchers will have to overcome several technical hurdles.



One roadblock involves sending electricity from one part of a chip to another. Though researchers have developed the means at a molecular level to send electrical impulses, they haven't yet figured out how to amplify that electricity at the molecular level and to keep it moving through the chip.



That's important, because those blasts of electricity are ultimately the means by which chips act as engines for computers.



Another obstacle is how to assemble molecules and keep them in place.



"There's no technology that will organize the molecules and get them in lockstep the way we want them," says James Ellenbogen, principal scientist in the nanosystems group at the Mitre Corp., a nonprofit that does research, mainly for the government. "Rather than push around a trillion molecules, we would like to have some way of designing systems so they just sort of fall into place."



At Zyvex, meanwhile, Von Ehr's 20-person firm is trying to figure out how to build tiny devices to assemble materials at the atomic level. When the company started in 1997, nobody at Zyvex really knew how to make that happen. Now the company is pursuing three research tracks.



One, called the "top-down" approach, involves building devices that can build tinier versions of themselves, which in turn will build still smaller versions. The "bottom-up" group is designing molecular building blocks that can be picked up and stacked in three dimensions. And the advanced technology group is slowing down a bed of atoms on a surface, arranging them in a certain pattern and then showering another atomic layer on top.



Just now Von Ehr is completing an expansion to about 20,000 square feet to accommodate the research effort, and is looking to hire software, electrical, mechanical and other engineers.



Though he doesn't have a true competitor yet, he concedes that big corporations like General Electric could decide abruptly to enter the space.



Or, a researcher somewhere could have a flash of brilliance while sipping coffee and make the next big breakthrough.



"We just have to hope they work for us," Von Ehr says.



Contact DBJ writer Jeff Bounds at jbounds@bizjournals.com or (214) 706-7122.