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A Traffic Control System For Molecules

Posted by Zonk on Mon May 15, 2006 12:51 AM
from the turn-right-at-the-corpuscle dept.
Biotech
Roland Piquepaille writes "Our cells contain small protein factories which have to deliver materials inside the cell via a network of microtubules. And the transportation is carried out by biomolecular motors. Now, researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have built a traffic control system able to force individual molecules to choose between 'roads' by applying strong electrical fields locally at Y-junctions. This traffic control system can potentially lead to new nano-fabrication techniques. Read more for additional references and pictures showing how this traffic system works."
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  • Right! This won't go wrong (Score:4, Funny)

    by Quirk (36086) on Monday May 15 2006, @12:59AM (#15332727) Homepage Journal
    As anyone who has to make a long commute to and from work knows, we've got traffic control down and running smoothly. Nothing could go wrong here.

  • interference (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spacerodent (790183) on Monday May 15 2006, @01:02AM (#15332735) Homepage
    With the tiny charges they're using would this ever be effective outside the lab setting? I would imagine that the crazy EMF of every day life would seriously fuck these up
    • One obvious application: computing. Design the controlling apparatus (or just the connection to the controlling apparatus) to an appropriate size and you have a transistor replacement. From one of the artists' interpretation pictures (Not always 100% acc

  • Troll! (Score:2, Funny)

    by SEWilco (27983)
    Halt, troll molecule!
    Get under that bridge!

  • The Next Step (Score:3, Funny)

    by Umbral Blot (737704) on Monday May 15 2006, @01:11AM (#15332753) Homepage
    All that's missing are tiny traffic cops who hand out tiner speed tickets.

    • Re:The Next Step (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ah, you mean nanotickets.

  • Minature Train Set! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sc0p3 (972992) <jaredbroad@gmaiC ... m minus caffeine> on Monday May 15 2006, @01:17AM (#15332771) Homepage Journal
    Hottest toy for next Christmas! Train sets so small you can't see them!
    Seriously though, as a biomedical engineer, this is bloody scary.

    This was the first time that this orientation-dependency of the electrophoretic mobility was observed.

    - This occurs in the body, we have microtubles and kinesin in all our cells. The 'research' has shown for *years* that magnetic fields have *no* effect on cancer etc.. so.. it controls Kinesin, but wont affect cells? please.
    • This occurs in the body, we have microtubles and kinesin in all our cells. The 'research' has shown for *years* that magnetic fields have *no* effect on cancer etc.. so.. it controls Kinesin, but wont affect cells? please.

      Imagine a society that progresses
    • The fact that you dont even know the difference between electric and magnetic fields shows that you shouldnt be a) talking shit and b) not the highest modded post.

      (hint: take a look at the involved field strenghts, too. To get an effect inside ones body, y
    • "Our bodies have things that are affected by EM fields" does not magically equal "causes cancer."

      Cancer is caused by genetic damage, not microtubles or kinesin being pointed this way or that. The research is faily conclusive: if it caused cancer, then we'
      • Im not saying that it causes cancer, Im simply saying that it will affect cells. Kinesin transports substances within cells, pretty much all substances. This includes DNA through the pores in the nucleus membrane and proteins to the rough ER. If these get

  • OK.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by suv4x4 (956391)
    Ok, so traffic control system for molecules, damn it this means nothing to me... What do I post, what do I post.. Heh a joke always works when you got not clue! I'll ask what the equivalent of traffic cops or talk how "that's the place you don't want a tra
    • you forgot the following slash-cliches:

      I'm confused and hurt, like a kicked puppy or a rape victim. Why aren't you using this [google.com] obscure and inferior technology which is similar only in that the press releases share words?

      Cool! so does that mean that $fav

    • Damn it, I think today's not my day... I'll go watch my downloaded episodes of Star Trek and see later.

      Get with the times man. Geeks don't watch Star Trek anymore. That's for the masses.

  • awesome work (Score:1, Insightful)

    by monkeyos (957157)
    but really, this is awesome work, this means we can have algorithmic control over the mixture and separation of proteins. good for making new stuff, but also good for investigating the interplay between information and biochemistry

    • Re:awesome work (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TapeCutter (624760)
      Before we can have "algorithmic control over the mixture and separation of proteins", we need a way to indetify the protiens and tie it to the switching mechanisim. In TFA the researchers used coloured protiens and appear to have switched each "junction" m

  • What took so long? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sbhobdell (38638) on Monday May 15 2006, @06:09AM (#15333302) Homepage
    This is all a bit old hat, isn't it?
    I was pushing bloodcells around using dielectrophoresis in Uni over a decade ago. Shortly thereafter, water was being tested for purity using the same method, and one of the post-docs was moving tagged proteins around too.
    How come it took so long to create a system to be used in protein manufacture?
    examples:
    http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abs_free.jsp?arNumb er=297897 [ieee.org] (1994)
    http://www.biophysj.org/cgi/content/abstract/77/1/ 516 [biophysj.org] (1994)
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9351287&dopt=Citation [nih.gov] (1997)

    • Re:What took so long? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pimpimpim (811140) on Monday May 15 2006, @07:52AM (#15333581)
      Well (disclaimer: I did not really read any of the articles), dielectrophoresis seems a 'static' separation technique, to influence position of particles, and this stuff from Cees Dekker seems a sort of dynamic procedure to influence flow of particles, which is a whole step more complex. I would take 10 years to go from one to the other ;)

      On a different note, I am a bit dissappointed that it is the same Cees Dekker who is a (or better: the only) big promotor in the Netherlands of the idea of Intelligent Design. This guy is doing such amazing research, that you start to wonder how he could ever combine this with the not very well-founded theory that ID is.

      Note to people with mod points: I am stating my personal opinion here: if you disagree, don't mod me down because of this opinion, but give decent replies. If you think the post is crappy for what it is, then mod as you wish.

      [ Parent ]

  • Maxwell's Demon now a possibility? (Score:4, Funny)

    by retrosteve (77918) on Monday May 15 2006, @06:10AM (#15333305) Homepage Journal
    I always wondered when nanotech would get good enough to find out why (or if) Maxwell's Demon [wikipedia.org] was really impossible.

    Now soon we'll know.

    • Nice post (not heard this one before, despite being a big fan of thought experiments and entropy). ASadly the TFA does say there needs to be a "strong electrical field" applied locally, in order to flick the switch. Which I doubt costs less in energy than
    • Doesn't this technology allow a stream of moving molecules to be diverted down one path or another? So the Maxwell's Demon thought experiment would have to be modified so that the molecules would be pumped through a tube where they could be analysed and an
      • We're still missing the big one here re Maxwell's demon, which is that we're talking about a closed sytem, which means we need to include the energy gone into creating the Demon. In this case it would include the energy needed to produce human kind, inorde
    • Broadly speaking, the Fluctuation Theorem [wikipedia.org] makes it unlikely that you can get more energy out of the sorting than you will have to expend to accomplish the sorting. To put it another way, any sorting process that is not driven by an external energy input wi
    • IANAPhysicist, so could someone explain why this wouldn't work:

      The tunneling effect has been demonstrated. Particles can "jump" across materials, provided that their energy is high enough.

      So, if you just create a sheet of something that's the right thickn
  • .. since we can't even make GPS devices that don't send people off cliffs or into rivers.
  • Or will they be charging a London-Style Congestion Charge?
    • Just because we can use colorful analogies like "factory" and "machines" and "traffic system" to help evoke understanding of some aspects of what's going on in the biological realm doesn't mean that all the same assumptions apply. Sure, cells are extremel
    • Onramps and stop signs are "Traffic Controllers" too. The problem you have is the changes the city makes in their methods of controlling traffic.

      These scientists are actually bringing civilization to these molecules. Before it was just mayhem and grid
  • choose between 'roads' by applying strong electrical fields locally at Y-junctions.

    Hate to think that the next time I get a strong static shock from someone that my cells are all going to go bonkers.

  • cancer (Score:1)

    by Thammuz (970395)
    could this then be applied to cancer? i mean sorting out the cancerous and non-cancerous cells?
  • Men! Our patented Molecular Traffic Formula can add inches to your P3N1$ by directing molecules to build your length and girth!!!!!
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