COMPUTATIONAL TASKS IN MEDICAL NANOROBOTICS - Bio-Inspired and Nanoscale Integrated Computing - page 392

15.1. INTRODUCTION
Nanotechnology is the engineering of molecularly precise structures and, ulti-
mately, molecular machines. Nanomedicine [1, 2] is the application of nanotech-
nology to medicine: the preservation and improvement of human health, using
molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body. Nanomedicine
encompasses at least three types of molecularly precise structures: nonbiological
nanomaterials, biotechnology materials and organisms, and nonbiological devices
including inorganic nanorobotics. In the near term, the molecular tools of
nanomedicine will include biologically active nanomaterials and nanoparticles
having well-defined nanoscale features. In the mid-term (5-10 years), knowledge
gained from genomics and proteomics will make possible new treatments tailored
to specific individuals, new drugs targeting pathogens whose genomes have been
decoded, and stem cell treatments. Genetic therapies, tissue engineering, and many
other offshoots of biotechnology will become more common in therapeutic
medical practice. We may also see biological robots derived from bacteria or
other motile cells that have had their genomes re-engineered and reprogrammed,
along with artificial organic devices that incorporate biological motors or self-
assembled DNA-based structures for a variety of useful medical purposes.
In the farther term (2020s and beyond), the first fruits of molecular
nanorobotics [3]—the most efficacious of the three classes of nanomedicine
technology, though clinically the most distant and still mostly theoretical—should
begin to appear in the medical field. These powerful therapeutic instrumentalities
will become available once we learn how to design [4-10] and construct [3, 11-13]
complete artificial nanorobots composed of diamondoid nanometer-scale parts
[12a] and onboard subsystems including sensors [1a], motors [12b], manipulators
[12b, 12c], power plants [1c], and molecular computers [1d, 12d]. The presence of
onboard computers is essential because in vivo medical nanorobots will be called
upon to perform numerous complex behaviors which must be conditionally
executed on at least a semiautonomous basis, guided by receipt of local sensor
data and constrained by preprogrammed settings, activity scripts, and event
clocking, and further limited by a variety of simultaneously executing real-time
control protocols.
The development pathway for diamondoid medical nanorobots will be long
and arduous. First, theoretical scaling studies [4-10] are used to assess basic
concept feasibility. These initial studies would then be followed by more detailed
computational simulations of specific nanorobot components and assemblies, and
ultimately full systems simulations, all thoroughly integrated with additional
simulations of massively parallel manufacturing processes from start to finish
consistent with a design-for-assembly engineering philosophy. Once nanofactories
implementing molecular manufacturing capabilities become available, experimen-
tal efforts may progress from component fabrication and testing to component
assembly and finally to prototypes and mass manufacture of medical nanorobots,
ultimately leading to clinical trials. By 2007 there was some limited experi-
mental work with microscale-component microrobots [14-18] but progress on