> [...]
> > We will see hybrids of silicon/molecular machinery this year.
This would very cool indeed, but not this year, no. Unless that means to
define 'hybrid' very losely. Biosensors? Coating AFM cantilevers with
antibodies? Then we already can do such hybrids.
> Yes, I think this will be the next big thing. The in-your-pocket
> pathogen analyser using mini-PCR and DNA-chips I discussed on another
I've been talking with a molbio-friend of mine (he's sequencing archae)
about using near-field proximal probe optics on fluorescent-tag-nucleotide
DNA polymerase reaction for sequencing purposes about a year ago. If we
can tweak polymerases into yielding current-reaction information & amplify
it to macro scales, cheap palmtop DNA sequencers would become possible.
Only a matter of time, this.
> thread seems to be feasible, the biomedical researcher I talked with
> tonight didn't see any problem, except that she didn't believe there
> was a market for it :-)
>
> What I would like is a molecular film that acts as a cellular
> automaton. Maybe we could use the microtubule units?
I'd rather hope it will be electronic. (Photopolymerizable) (multi-layer)
Langmuir-Blodgett- Si wafer coating of liquid-mosaic engineered proteins
would seem the easiest route towards Si/molecular circuit hybrids. Most
likely, we'll see memories as first-generation instances of such
technology.
ciao,
'gene