Today is the most exciting time to be working in nanotechnology, and bionanotechnology
in particular. Chemistry, biology, and physics have revealed
an immense amount of information on molecular structure and
function, and now we are poised to make use of it for atomic-level engineering.
New discoveries are being made every day, and clever people are
pressing these discoveries into service in every imaginable (and unimaginable)
way.
In this book, I present many of the lessons that may be learned from biology
and how they are being applied to nanotechnology. The book is divided
into three basic parts. In the first part, I explore the properties of the
nanomachines that are available in cells. In Chapter 2, I present the unfamiliar
world of bionanomachines and go on a short tour of the natural nanomachinery
that is available for our use. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the
techniques that are available in biotechnology for harnessing and modifying
these nanomachines.
In the second part, I look to these natural nanomachines for guidance in
the building of our own nanomachinery. By surveying what is known about
biological molecules, we can isolate the general principles of structure and
function that are used to construct functional nanomachines. These include
general structural principles, presented in Chapter 4, and functional principles,
described in Chapter 5.
The book finishes with two chapters on applications. Chapter 6 surveys
some of the exciting applications of bionanotechnology that are currently
under study. The final chapter looks to the future, speculating about what
we might expect.
