24 September 2003

Engineering team working to create nanomotor

An ultratiny motor small enough to be part of a system could eventually travel through a patient's bloodstream to help repair damaged cells, organs, and DNA, or it could even see heavy use in industry.

A prototype of the "viral protein nanomotor" was created by three engineering departments at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey—mechanical and aerospace, biomedical, and chemical and biochemical. They hope to unveil the device in 2007.

Rutgers engineers are using biological molecules derived from virus-based proteins to build a bio-nanomotor that can perform a linear opening and closing motion. The motor, invisible to the naked eye, will be so small that 50,000 of them would be able to line up in the width of a human hair. It would potentially work within systems of additional nanocomponents that may perform such actions as spinning, stretching, or sensing temperature or position. Together, these components would make up the systems that travel the bloodstream or perform other tasks in medicine and industry.

"Various bio-nanocomponents like our linear motor will be developed throughout the world over the next ten years," said Constantinos Mavroidis, Rutgers associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and principal investigator on the project. "Availability of these components will then pave the way for development of complete nanorobotic assemblies in the ensuing years."

Mavroidis said the idea had its genesis about two years ago in conversations with Martin Yarmush, chairman of biomedical engineering. "Because the motor will be used in an assembly of various biological components, we considered using proteins and DNA molecules as the building blocks," Mavroidis said. "By putting together my experience in robotics and mechanical design with Dr. Yarmush's knowledge of biomedical engineering, we began to come up with some answers."

Connecting the motor with other biological and structural elements is where chemistry and biochemistry come in, Mavroidis said. "It's a new molecular motor and the assembly of various biological elements that can work together in a multicomponent bio-nanosystem."

Mavroidis compares developing bio-nanomotors to designing the internal combustion engine, which engineers later combined with other components to develop such history-changing advances as the automobile and airplane. "Two years ago, our ideas seemed very ambitious, like science fiction. Now it's becoming a reality."