Nanotechnology: the next big idea Week 3: Pop Culture

1. Nanotechnology: the next big ideaWeek 3: Pop Culture Maryse de la Giroday 6-week course SFU Liberal Arts & Adults 55+ program

2. Old business • kevlar • dendrimer • quantum spin • Niels Bohr hydrogen atom model • Google, medications, and magnetic particles • Sourcing nanomaterials • Where does Tony Ryan’s pollution go after it’s captured in clothing fibres? • Naturally occurring carbon nanotubes

3. Kevlar (1 of 2) • Developed in 1965 by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont, poly(p-phenyleneterephthalamide) (PPTA), or Kevlar, is a para-aramid synthetic fiber deriving its strength from interchain hydrogen bonding. It finds use in flexible energy and electronic systems, but is most commonly associated with bullet-proof body armour. (http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/09/oxide-armour-kevlar-stab-resistance)

4. Kevlar (2 of 2) • Presentation #MS+PS+TF-ThA4, “Multifunctional Fabrics via Tungsten ALD on Kevlar,” authored by Sarah Atanasov, B. Kalanyan and G.N. Parsons, will be at 3:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014. • researchers will describe how they were able to “weave” high-strength, highly conductive yarns made of tungsten metal on Kevlar — aka body armor material — by using atomic layer deposition (ALD), a process commonly used for producing memory and logic devices. (http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=15053 Oct. 31, 2014)

5. Dendrimers • http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=13659 (June 6, 2014; video) • I conflated them with aptamers: Dr. Maria DeRosa’s research examines a type of nucleic acid called ‘aptamers’ that can fold into 3D nanoscale shapes capable of binding tightly to a specific molecular target. (http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=4923)

6. Quantum spin • In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles, composite particles (hadrons), and atomic nuclei. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_%28physics%29)

7. Quantum spin • Physicist: “Spin” or sometimes “nuclear spin” or “intrinsic spin” is the quantum version of angular momentum. Unlike regular angular momentum, spin has nothing to do with actual spinning. Normally angular momentum takes the form of an object’s tendency to continue rotating at a particular rate. Conservation of regular, in-a-straight-line momentum is often described as “an object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest”, conservation of angular momentum is often described as “an object that’s rotating stays rotating, and an object that’s not rotating keeps not rotating”. (http://www.askamathematician.com/2011/10/q-what-is-spin-in-particle-physics-why-is-it-different-from-just-ordinary-rotation/)

8. Quantum spin • What does it really mean that particle has a spin of up/down? And how is spin actually meassured? [sic] • Answer: Your confusion probably arises not from the technical details of spin measurement, but the peculiar nature of quantum mechanics. The spin state of electron can be arbitrary aligned, so there are infinite possible spin states, not just up and down. But all these states live in a 2-dimensional vector space, and up and down states are one sets of basis vectors of this space. In other words, any spin state may be written as linear combination of up and down states (or left and right states).

9. Quantum spin • Designating up and down states as the basis is analogous to choosing coordinate system; they are arbitrary and do not establish a preferential orientation in space. Another peculiar thing about quantum physics is the measurement induced "collapse" of quantum state. Whatever the initial orientation, if you measure spin along z axis, the outcome can only be up and down, with certain probability. Now since a left state tilts neither upward or downward, it is naturally the possibility of each outcome is 50%. (http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/31443/what-does-it-really-mean-that-particle-has-a-spin-of-up-down-and-how-is-spin-ac)

10. Niels Bohr and the hydrogen atom model (solar system model) • In atomic physics, the Rutherford–Bohr model or Bohr model, introduced by Niels Bohr in 1913, depicts the atom as a small, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons that travel in circular orbits around the nucleus—similar in structure to the solar system, but with attraction provided by electrostatic forces rather than gravity. After the cubic model (1902), the plum-pudding model (1904), the Saturnian model (1904), and the Rutherford model (1911) came the Rutherford–Bohr model or just Bohr model for short (1913). The improvement to the Rutherford model is mostly a quantum physical interpretation of it. • The Bohr model has been superseded, but the quantum theory remains sound. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_model)

11. Science facts from school • How many senses do you have? • Which of the following are magnetic: a tomato, you, paperclips? • What are the primary colours of pigments and paints? • What region of the tongue is responsible for sensing bitter tastes? • What are the states of matter? • (http://theconversation.com/five-science-facts-we-learnt-at-school-that-are-plain-wrong-33258)

12. Google, medications, magnetic particles • Google is in the early stages of creating tiny, magnetic nanoparticles that will be able to search the human body for cancer and other diseases, The Wall Street Journal’s Alistair Barr and Ron Winslow report. [behind a paywall] • Google’s goal is “an early heads-up” on disease to ultimately facilitate more effective treatment by making medicine proactive instead of reactive. • Google’s particles will be less than 1/000 the width of a red blood cell and would attach themselves to specific cells, proteins, and other molecules inside the body. For example, Google could coat its nanoparticles with an antibody that would recognize and attach to a protein on the surface of a tumor cell.

13. Google, medications, magnetic particles • Google is also working on a wearable device that would attract and count the particles. In that way, the system would be used for testing and monitoring health: You could be alerted through the wearable if a lot of the particles were attaching to tumor cells. Google admits, however, that it still needs to better understand what constitutes as a healthy level of disease-carrying molecules in the blood and what would be a cause for a concern.

14. Google, medications, magnetic particles • Google would likely let people consume its nanoparticles through a pill, but is reportedly at least five to seven years away from a product that would be approved by doctors.  • (https://my.news.yahoo.com/google-making-magnetic-nanoparticles-search-172700907.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

15. Google, medications, magnetic particles: details please • ‘Andrew] Conrad’s track record demands that we take this seriously. In the 1990s the molecular biologist’s work led to a test that dramatically reduced the time and cost it took to test blood and plasma donations for HIV and other viruses. He continued his ground-breaking research as chief scientist at LabCorp, but after spending time with Sergey Brin and others at Google, he decided that he could reach for most audacious goals at that company’s well-funded advanced lab, which has been the source of projects like self-driving cars, Google Glass, and Project Loon.

16. Google, medications, magnetic particles • Conrad, 50, is a surfing aficionado who sports a blonde goatee and a wry sense of humor. He gave BACKCHANNEL a rare interview about his new project as well as an overview of what his team is doing at Google X.

17. Google, medications, magnetic particles • ... Most of the time people are not sick. That means monitoring would have to be done continuously. You have to measure all the time because if you only measure once a year when people visit he [sic] doctor—or in men’s cases, once a decade—you’re going to miss huge swaths of the possibility of detecting disease early. So we have to make a continuous monitoring and measuring device. Since it’s continuous, it has to be something people wear, right? ...

18. Google, medications, magnetic particles • So the radical solution was to move away from the episodic, “Wait ‘til you feel a big lump in your chest before you go into the doctor” approach, and do a continuous measurement of key biological markers through non-invasive devices. And we would do that by miniaturizing electronics. We can make a little computer chip which has three hundred and sixty thousand transistors on it, yet it’s the size of a piece of glitter. One of the other ways is to functionalize nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are the smallest engineered particles, the smallest engineered machines or things that you can make. Nature does its business on the molecular level or the cellular level.

19. Google, medications, magnetic particles • ... We use Star Trek as our guiding force around Google because there used to be a computer called Tricorder —you’d talk to it and it would answer any question. That’s what we’re really looking for at Google X. We want to have a Tricorder where Dr. McCoy will wave this thing and say “Oh, you’re suffering from Valerian death fever.” And he’d then give some shot in a person’s neck and they’d immediately get better. We won’t do the shots—our partners will do the shots. But we’re hoping to build the Tricorder.

20. Google, medications, magnetic particles • You say you decorate the nanoparticles. I’ve also heard the word painting. I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around how you paint a nanoparticle. • It’s done with chemistry. The core of the nanoparticle is iron oxide. So you take all the little particles, you can’t see individual ones, but you take a spoonful of particles, and you throw it into a mix of almost a polymer, like paint, that coats the outside. And coating the outside of it makes it permissible to attach other things to the surface.

21. Google, medications, magnetic particles • ... When a sodium molecule comes into the nanoparticle, it causes the nanoparticle to fluoresce light at a different color. So by collecting those nanoparticles at your wrist, where you have a device that detects these changes, we can see what color they’re glowing, and that way you can tell the concentration of sodium. In another case, by having a magnet at your wrist you can tell whether the nanoparticles are bound to cancer cells. … • ...

22. Google, medications, magnetic particles • What about false positives? • This goes back to our Baseline Study. We are looking at thousands of normal, healthy people and we’re going to measure everything we can think to measure in an effort to answer questions like how many cancer cells should a normal healthy person have, Zero? I don’t know. One? I don’t know. Ten? I don’t know.

23. Google, medications, magnetic particles • Because we might have cancer going around all the time but the immune system stifles it. So if you really want to be proactive, you need a ground truth. And the baseline is enrolling thousands of super healthy people, measuring all these things on them, then putting these devices on them to make sure we know what do when we’re looking for someone who’s transitioning from health to disease. • (https://medium.com/backchannel/were-hoping-to-build-the-tricorder-12e1822e5e6a0

24. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • The term “moon shot” has been getting tossed around a lot lately, mostly by Google X, the search company’s publicity arm. • Ahem, secret lab. • The last time was last Friday, when the Wall Street Journal broke the news of a biomedical research study being planned by Google X, which it crowned “Google’s New Moonshot” and rated as the company’s “most ambitious and difficult science project ever.”

25. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • But the research, called the Baseline Study, sounded pretty ordinary to me—measure the genes and blood chemistry of 175 healthy people (and eventually thousands more) and try to establish some molecular information about what normal looks like. • It makes you wonder what qualifies as a moon shot. On Twitter, some genome researchers had the same feeling:

26. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • Google’s moon shots now include autonomous cars, Google Glass, high-altitude blimps that beam Internet service to the ground below, contact lenses that monitor glucose, a life extension company with plans to “solve death,” and something involving walking robots. Half these projects were announced in the last eight months.

27. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • There’s also something slightly hokey-sounding about Baseline. The Google X manager running the study, Andrew Conrad, previously cofounded the California Health & Longevity Institute. That’s an upscale spa near Malibu where the well-heeled can pick from a menu that includes acupuncture treatments, healthy cooking lessons, or sitting inside a 64-slice CT scanner.

28. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • It was funded by Conrad’s previous benefactor, the 91-year-old billionaire David Murdock, who is the chairman of Dole Foods, and who has plans to live to be 125 by eating only healthy foods. In fact, the $4,000 executive physicals offered at the spa (technicians check your vitamin levels and scour your scans for cancer while you get a massage) sounds vaguely like the workups the 175 volunteers will get as part of Baseline.

29. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: Baseline Study) • And then there’s simply the matter of scale. Google has been building a team of “70 to 100” experts in biomedical imaging and analysis, according to the WSJ. That’s not small, but it’s not moon-shot-sized either. About 400,000 people worked for the Apollo program, a massive undertaking that at times ate up as much as 4 percent of the U.S. GDP. (July 29, 2014 MIT Technology Review http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529591/whats-a-moon-shot-worth-these-days/

30. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: magnetic particles) • Other labs are already hard at work at exploring the potential nanoparticles, experts noted. "The idea isn't new," said Laurent Levy, founder and chairman of a French company, Nanobiotix, which is looking at the use of nanoparticles in cancer radiotherapy. "It's not science fiction -- it is achievable," he told AFP, saying that the technology is likely to start coming on stream within a decade. (http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=37911.php )

31. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: magnetic particles) • Some nanotechnology experts, however, have responded by asking whether Google’s project is more science fiction than medical reality. • “It’s very exciting that a company with Google’s financial firepower is taking on this big challenge,” says Chad Mirkin, who directs the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University. But he says that what Google has described is “an intent to do something, not a discovery or a pathway to get there.” At this point, he says, the technology is speculative: it’s basically “a good Star Trek episode.”

32. Response to Google X projects (moonshot projects: magnetic particles) • In addition to challenges in delivering the nanoparticles and reading a signal from them, another key question is whether the system will be safe, says MIT professor Robert Langer. Indeed, says John McDonald, a professor at Georgia Tech, “one of the big hurdles we had with magnetic nanoparticles was their toxicity.” McDonald says that “Although anything is possible, I think there may be more effective ways to detect cancer and other diseases at an early stage than the approach envisioned by Google.” (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532181/reality-check-for-googles-nanoparticle-health-tests/ MIT Technology Review Oct. 31, 2014)

33. Real research on magnetic nanoparticles • Magnetic nanoparticles as contrast agents in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer by Juan Gallo, Nicholas J. Long, and Eric O. Aboagye. DOI: 10.1039/C3CS60149H (Review Article) Chem. Soc. Rev., 2013, 42, 7816-7833 First published on the web 21st June 2013

34. Real research on magnetic nanoparticles • Conclusions and Outlook: As demonstrated by the examples highlighted in this review, the application of nanotechnology to human health, although still in its initial stages, is very promising. The main advantage of nanoparticle formulations is the possibility of using the nanoparticles as a functional platform onto which a number of different ligands can be assembled. This not only allows the simultaneous delivery of different drugs, or drugs and imaging probes (not treated in this review), together with targeting molecules to gain specificity, but also allows the multivalent presentation of ligands (giving even more versatility to the system as weaker targeting molecules can be used) and provides a higher local concentration of the drugs in their final location.

35. Sourcing nanomaterials (1 of 3) • http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/nanomaterial/suppliers_plist.php?page=1&mat=&subcat1=np • ABC Nanotech (South Korea) • Producer of silver and silica nanoparticles and nano coatings. • ABCR (Germany) • ABCR supplies speciality chemicals, including nanomaterials, to pharmaceutical, chemical and material science oriented companies worldwide. • ... • American Dye Source, Inc. (Canada) • American Dye Source, Inc. is a manufacturer of high quality materials for many different applications. • American Elements (USA) • Manufacturer of advanced and engineered materials including ultra high purity refining (99.9999%) and nanoparticles.

36. Sourcing nanomaterials (2 of 3) • Antaria (Australia) • A manufacturer of advanced nanomaterials and nanomaterials products in Australia. • ApNano Materials (USA) • Commercializes proprietary technology for nanospheres and nanotubes made from inorganic compounds. • ... • Chengyin Technology (PR China) • Producer of nanoparticles. • Cline Scientific (Sweden) • The company develops and sells tools for biomedical research based on nanotechnologies. Our products range from nanoparticles in suspensions to engineered surfaces for applications within stem cell research.

37. Sourcing nanomaterials (3 of 3) • Comar Chemicals (South Africa) • The company manufactures iron based nanoparticle colloids and carboxylates • ... • Cytodiagnostics (Canada) • Cytodiagnostics is a biotechnology company that focuses on providing and developing nanotechnology derived products and services for the international life science market. • DA NanoMaterials (USA) • A joint venture between DuPont and Air Products, develops and manufactures colloidal silica sols and particles for electronic applications.

38. Where does Tony Ryan’s pollution go after it’s captured in clothing fibres? • Message sent Nov. 3, 2014

39. Naturally occurring carbon nanotubes? • Yes, we think so: Naturally produced carbon nanotubes in Chemical Physics Letters 373 (2003) 272–276 • Maybe no: Do single-walled carbon nanotubes occur naturally? In Nature Nanotechnology 3, 310 (2008) doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.139 • Maybe yes: Are Carbon Nanotubes a Naturally Occurring Material? Hints from Methane CVD Using Lava as a Catalyst in Current Nanoscience VOLUME: 7 (2011) ISSUE: 3 DOI: 10.2174/157341311795542543

40. Older debates within the nanotech community set the stage • Top/down engineering • Bottom/up engineering • Self-assemblers/self-assembly • Goo (gray and green) • Fear of nanotechnology (scientists were very concerned after the GMO and stem cell debacles)

41. Drexler, the popularizer and proselytizer is quite polarizing • K. Eric Drexler, an engineer who studied with Feynman, popularized nanotechnology with his book Engines of Creation (1986) plarized the community and set the stage for goo • His latest book is Radical Abundance (2013). • http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU_qqMD08PFrDfPREoBEL6IQ&feature=player_detailpage&v=ylOCEmlnyHk

42. Bitter nanotechnology debates (Smalley) • The Drexler–Smalley debate [2001 – 3] on molecular nanotechnology was a public dispute between K. Eric Drexler, the originator of the conceptual basis of molecular nanotechnology, and Richard Smalley, a recipient of the 1996 Nobel prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the nanomaterial buckminsterfullerene. The dispute was about the feasibility of constructing molecular assemblers, which are molecular machines which could robotically assemble molecular materials and devices by manipulating individual atoms or molecules.

43. Bitter nanotechnology debates (Smalley) • The concept of molecular assemblers was central to Drexler's conception of molecular nanotechnology, but Smalley argued that fundamental physical principles would prevent them from ever being possible. The two also traded accusations that the other's conception of nanotechnology was harmful to public perception of the field and threatened continued public support for nanotechnology research. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate_on_molecular_nanotechnology]

44. Bitter nanotechnology debates (Joy) • Grey goo (also spelled gray goo) is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, ... • The term gray goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.[4] In 2004 he stated, "I wish I had never used the term 'gray goo'. …” • Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, discussed some of the problems with pursuing this technology in his now-famous 2000 article in Wired magazine, titled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us". In direct response to Joy's concerns, the first quantitative technical analysis of the ecophagy scenario was published in 2000 by nanomedicine pioneer Robert Freitas. ...

45. Bitter nanotechnology debates (Prince Charles) • In Britain, Prince Charles called upon the Royal Society to investigate the "enormous environmental and social risks" of nanotechnology in a planned report, leading to much media commentary on gray goo. The Royal Society's report on nanoscience was released on 29 July 2004, and declared the possibility of self-replicating machines to lie too far in the future to be of concern to regulators.[9]

46. Bitter nanotechnology debates (Prince Charles) • More recent analysis has shown that the danger of gray goo is far less likely than originally thought.[by whom?][10] However, other long-term major risks to society and the environment from nanotechnology have been identified.[11] Drexler has made a somewhat public effort to retract his gray goo hypothesis, in an effort to focus the debate on more realistic threats associated with knowledge-enabled nanoterrorism and other misuses. .. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo]

47. Challenging Feynman’s role as the source of nanotechnology thinking • Chris Toumey, cultural anthropologist [Ph.D. 1987 from Univ. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill] who works in the anthropology of science.  Since 2003 he has worked on societal and cultural issues in nanotechnology. Professor at University of South Carolina • http://www.christoumey.org/?page_id=25

48. Challenging Feynman’s role as the source of nanotechnology thinking • 2008  Reading Feynman into Nanotechnology: A Text for a New Science. Techné, 13(3):133-168. • The results in Table 1 show a total of 3 citations in the 1960s and 4 in the 1970s. This scant record in the two decades before the arrival of the STM and the AFM corroborates some impressionistic comments. Tim Appenzeller wrote, “The fact that many of Feynman‟s ideas have now become reality doesn‟t mean they caught on at the time” (Appenzeller 1991:1300). … And according to Adam Keiper, “Although Feynman‟s lecture is, in retrospect, remembered as a major event, it didn‟t make much of a splash in the world of science at the time” (Keiper 2003:18-19).

49. Challenging Feynman’s role as the source of nanotechnology thinking • I received replies from four of the people associated with the STM, the AFM, and the manipulation of atoms, namely, G. Binnig, D. Eigler, C. Quate, and H. Rohrer. I received nothing at the time from C. Gerber, and was unable to locate E. Schweizer. These nano luminaries, as I call them, responded to my queries by saying uniformly that Feynman‟s “Plenty of Room” had no influence on their work on the STM, the AFM, or the manipulation of atoms. Rohrer said that their STM work was influenced “not whatsoever” by Feynman‟s paper. “Binnig and I neither heard of Feynman's paper until Scanning Tunneling Microscopy was widely accepted in the scientific community a couple of years after our first publication, nor did any referee of our papers ever refer to it... It might have been even after the Nobel [Prize].”

50. Challenging Feynman’s role as the source of nanotechnology thinking • Regarding the general influence of “Plenty of Room” on nanotech as a whole, Rohrer responded, “I think it had no influence whatsoever.” Rohrer has written a short unpublished comment on “Plenty of Room” in which he praised the boldness and brilliance of Feynman‟s vision, but he reminded the reader that nanotech‟s scientific community proceeded without knowing about “Plenty of Room.” “Feynman‟s lecture remained practically unnoticed during nearly three decades, while the miniaturization progressed in the same time at a fantastic pace, driven by the needs of the data processing industry” (Rohrer Undated). [From Toumey’s paper]