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Cell-repair Technology
Published July 14, 2023
Nanoscience is a branch of science and engineering devoted to manipulating atoms and molecules at the nanoscale. It finds itself useful in just about every social and economic sector, but its potential shows no bounds as it’s applied to innovations in medicine.
For centuries medicine has been an uncertain art of trial and error. Now based on years of empirical evidence, a particular chemical structure with the appropriate functional groups can effectively treat diseases. Rather than developing new molecules with greater complexity, material scientists and engineers can develop molecular machines—sophisticated aggregates of molecules—with unforeseen medical functions.
Nanoscience is theoretically capable of being so incredibly specific in its manipulation of atoms and molecules in the human body that it can reverse all known diseases and injuries, including irreversible ailments like severe freezing, ischemia, and the destruction of tissue.
Whereas medicinal drugs are limited by the inherent properties of their chemical structure—the blind behavior between nucleophiles and electrophiles—molecular machines act based on rule-based programming to directly repair cells. To roam amongst cells, analyzing and diagnosing malfunctions yet to be treated like a mechanic to a beat-up car.
The theory is quite simple: if the human body is made of cells, and a cell comprises molecules and atoms, then molecular machines can manipulate molecules and atoms to repair cells. Atom-by-atom characterization and repair.
Cells perform complicated functions; they use enzymes for molecular synthesis, and conduct processes—namely macroautophagy—to recycle damaged organelles. Designing molecular machines like the tools cells already use to repair themselves is yet another case of biomimicry. If nature can do it, we can do it faster and more efficiently.
Capabilities
Rule-based programming equips cell-repair devices with several necessary functionalities.
Access
Similar to the movement of white blood cells, molecular machines, once injected into the body, can move from the bloodstream to the surrounding tissues. As long as cell-repair devices are encapsulated with non-antigenic materials such as polyethylene glycol, they can reach any type of cell without interference from the body’s immune response.
If viruses can penetrate a cell membrane and access the DNA within a cell’s nucleus, so too can molecular machines, as a cell can naturally recover from membrane and cytoplasmic trauma. Furthermore, cell-repair devices the size of organelles can enter cells and move about freely without causing significant damage.
Disassembly
Digestive enzymes can disassemble molecular aggregates that are significantly larger in size, despite the ability of enzymes to undergo conformational changes to enlarge their own size. Repair devices designed with tools of similar functionality to the amino acids of enzymes can perform controlled disassembly of damaged organelles.
Analysis
Antibodies can distinguish between different proteins, enzymes can select substrates by shape and size, and several other biological processes demonstrate recognition of molecules based on charge distribution.
Cell-repair devices will be capable of analyzing and identifying biomolecules through probing. Simply touching a biomolecule to assess its size, shape, and charge distribution is enough to identify its structure.
Reassembly
Throughout the lifespan of an organism, cells can regenerate identical copies of their organelles many times over. Such an intensive process demonstrates the potential of molecular machines to similarly rebuild or reassemble dysfunctional organelles to their exact specification. Organelle replication is proof that molecular tools for reassembly already exist. The focus now rests on the incorporation of tools with similar functionality in molecular machines.
Communication
Achieving complete cellular restoration in a matter of days requires injecting millions of repair devices into the bloodstream. For molecular machines to effectively repair dysfunctional cells, communication between each other is indispensable. Rather than equipping each repair device with a cubic micron-sized nanocomputer, it would be simpler to develop a mobilized nanocomputer to supervise a set of smaller devices from a central point within the cell. Along with coordinating several repair tasks, these nanocomputers can transfer data to computers outside the body to provide medical professionals with real-time analysis.
Design
There are several proposed designs for not only cell-repair devices but molecular machines for all other medical purposes. Generally, most designs exhibit a set of similar attributes:
Nanocomputer. A central processing unit (CPU) with 10 megabytes of random access memory (RAM).
Data storage. A 1000-megabyte unit of data storage directly connected to the nanocomputer.
Sensor. Typically at the front of the vehicle, comprising 1000 extendable molecular manipulators jutting outward from the nanocomputer like the whiskers of a cat. Other designs display a singular probe. The sensor can measure changes in temperature, pressure, and chemical concentrations.
Propeller. Cilia aligned parallel with each other about a cylindrical surface—a design similar to that of a bacterium. One other variation is the fishtail design.
Fin. A surface to stabilize the vehicle, to produce lift, thrust, or steer through various fluid media.
Tools. Encapsulating techniques to hold and release drugs, along with removing damaged structures from the repair site.
Rule-based Programming
Cell-repair devices do not all have to be of similar shape and size. In the era of mass-scale manufacturing of molecular machines, competitors will inevitably have distinguishable designs. However, to propel this future technology into practicability, cell-repair devices must adhere to a rule-based language so as to act as synchronized swarms. Moreover, as our understanding of certain diseases grows—and procedures become more complicated—a separation of expertise may expedite the employment of cell-repair devices: medical professionals program the treatments while molecular roboticists improve the designs.
Among other swarm-programming languages like Buzz and Proto, Athelas is the rule-based language best suited for facilitating collaboration between medical professionals, roboticists, and nanotechnologists, as well as for delegating spatial swarm behaviors, computation, and synchronized knowledge.
The compiler known as Bilbo translates the Athelas programming into the cell-repair devices’ specifications. In other words, Bilbo identifies the different device archetypes and specifies the roles of each device prior to their injection into the body.
A set of rules continuously determines the repair devices’ behaviors against changing conditions as they traverse the body. Each of these rules has four clauses: initialize, actions, when, and until.
The initialize clause specifies the payload to be equipped onto the repair device prior to injection. The when and until clauses are set based on the conditions to which the repair device is exposed—pH level or concentration of a particular substance. For example, when the concentration of X in the vicinity of T is above 6 moles per cubic meter, the payload may be released. Notably, the conditions aligning with the when clause need not hold for the duration of the action; they may only need to trigger it. The until clause simply terminates the action until either the current condition holding for the when clause changes or an additional condition is met.
The actions clause sets the actions to be executed. These actions include releasing the payload, protecting the payload from a biomarker, exposing it to a biomarker, and even enabling and disabling the employment of tools like nanolasers, probes, and catalytic agents.
Nanocomputers
Controlling the capabilities of cell-repair devices requires each to have an onboard nanocomputer with data storage densities as small as one gigabyte per cubic micron. Since the typical diameter of a somatic cell is 10 μm, one gigabyte worth of storage data would be nearly one five-hundredth the volume of the cell. Assuming all molecules within a cell are, to some extent, patterned—indeed, cells are naturally organized—one gigabyte is more than sufficient to obtain a complete molecular scanning of a cell.
To repair cells to a completely healthy state would mean understanding every ensuing molecular alteration from a certain disease. Regardless of the number of molecular alterations, absolutely nothing would evade detection once nano-computerized molecular machines compare the data from healthy cells to dysfunctional cells. In as soon as a few days once treatment is complete, repaired cells would be indistinguishable from healthy cells.
Sources
Agmon, N.; Bachelet, I.; Hachmon, G.; Wiesel-Kapah, I. Rule-Based Programming of Molecular Robot Swarms for Biomedical Applications. IJCAI’16: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, New York, New York, United States, 2016; Brewka, G; AAAI Press. DOI: 10.5555/3061053
Alcor. (2022). Cell Repair Technology.
Mitra M (2017) Medical Nanobot for Cell and Tissue Repair. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00038. DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00038