Toward replicatable, multifunctional, nanoscaffolded machines. A chemical manifesto
G. von Kiedrowski**, L.-H. Eckardt, K. Naumann, W. M. Pankau, M. Reimold,
and M. Rein
Chair of Organic Chemistry I, Bioorganic Chemistry,
Ruhr-University Bochum NC2/171, Universitaetsstrasse 150, 44780 Bochum,
Germany
Abstract: Self-replicating nanorobots were foreseen
in technological dreams and visions whose scientific ground found solid
criticism from chemical and physical reasoning. If one, however, views
such constructs as three-dimensionally defined noncovalent nanoscaffolding
of a multitude of modular functions whose array is replicatable in a
nonautonomous way, many pieces of technology needed for their implementation
became recently available. Gold cluster-labeled molecules were remotely
controlled by GHz radio frequency causing local and selective inductive
heating, and monoconjugable thermostable gold clusters will become commercially
available soon. Charged molecules were electrophoretically steered and
manipulated on the surface of microelectrode array chips. Surface-promoted
replication and exponential amplification of DNA analogs (SPREAD) may
find particular applications for the cloning and copying of informational
nanostructures on the surface of such chips. Synthetic trisoligonucleotidyl
junctions were reported as covalent building blocks for noncovalent
DNA nanostructures, and it was shown that kinetic control during noncovalent
synthesis favors small and defined nanostructures instead of polymeric
networks. Very recently, it was demonstrated that functionalized DNA
nanoscaffolds with stiff tensegrity such as tetrahedra self-assemble
from maximally instructed sets of 3- or [3+1]-arm junctions, and that
the connectivity information in such nanoscaffolds can be copied. The
implications of these developments are discussed with respect to a possible
implementation scheme for the issue of the title.
*Plenary lectures presented at the 16th International
Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC-16): Structure and Mechanism
in Organic Chemistry,San Diego, California, USA, 4�9 August 2002. Other
presentations are published in this issue, pp.
541�630.
**Corresponding Author
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