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

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 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 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 Impact Nanomedicine

11 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. Impact Nanomedicine

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

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

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

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

16 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. Replace chromosomes 2008 E-spaces and Robert A. Freitas Jr.

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

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

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

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

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

23 End of talk END OF TALK

24 H abstraction Hydrogen abstraction from adamantane eV

25 H donation Hydrogen donation onto an adamantane radical eV

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

27 Summary 9 tools 100% process closure Feedstock: C 2 H 4, GeH 4 65 reaction sequences 328 reaction steps 102,188 CPU-hours (1-GHz CPUs)

28 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) Replication Manufacturing costs per kilogram will be low

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

30 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 bits in the same volume Almost a billion Pentiums in parallel Powerful Computers Impact

31 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,... Lighter, stronger, smarter, less expensive Impact

32 Nanosensors, nanoscale scanning Power (fuel cells, other methods) Communication Navigation (location within the body) Manipulation and locomotion Computation By Robert Freitas, Nanomedicine Volume I

33 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 A revolution in medicine

34 Liquid nitrogen Time Temperature Cryonics

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

36 Annotated bibliography on diamond mechanosynthesis Nanofactory/AnnBibDMS.htm Molecular tools (over 50 entries)