New Molecular 3D Printer Can Create Billions of Compounds

ErnieKey writes: University of Illinois researchers have created a device, called a Molecular-Machine, which essentially manufactures on the molecular compound level. Martin Burke, the lead researcher on this project says that they are already able to synthesize over a billion different compounds with the machine, compounds which up until now have been very difficult to synthesize. The impact on the pharmaceutical industry could be staggering.

Comments

Replicator prototype

[king neckbeard]

Is this the beginning of what could become Star Trek-like replicators?

Re:Replicator prototype

[ColdWetDog]

Nope, it's much close to what Neil Stephenson describes in the 'Diamond Age' although calling it a 'printer' is a bit disingenuous. It looks like a complicated solid phase chemistry setup. And it only 'prints' four classes of simple molecules.

But it is interesting. It's not your father's organic chemistry any more.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Iamthecheese]

I think to qualify it would have to have a way to move said small molecules to site and bind them as and where needed.

Re:Replicator prototype

[RingDev]

If I am reading this correctly, no. It does not appear to have significant value at the production level. The cost per quantity is astronomical. But what it can be used for is rapid prototyping. Say you have an idea for a new doping agent for a photovoltaic cell. Previously, you would have to either manually concoct the agent, or you would have to design a production system to make it for you. Both of which are incredibly time and financially intensive, especially for something that is just a theory. This machine would allow you to "print" a small batch of your agent, enough to do a proof of concept so that you can determine if it is worth moving forward with a production system to produce it more efficiently.

-Rick

Re:Replicator prototype

[ShanghaiBill]

calling it a 'printer' is a bit disingenuous.

To be fair, the scientists did not call it a 'printer'. The journalist made that up in an effort to dumb down the story and wedge it into a column on 3D printing.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Down with the Feed! I demand the Seed!

Re:Replicator prototype

[dlkwnt]

Meh, wake me up when I can print out a chicken sandwich, a pillow, and a couple hits of LSD...

Re:Replicator prototype

[kheldan]

Possibly. Also, it would be nice if it was the beginning of the end for over-priced pharmaceuticals.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Kojow777]

Is this the beginning of what could become Star Trek-like replicators?

I'd say more likely this will usher in the era of Stargate-like replicators.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Catbeller]

It will happen, and soon. The journalist understands this. So, it is a printer. You are persnickity to the point of blocking the realization - chemical printers will happen, and it is part and parcel of the 3D printing flaming freakout that will shortly commence. They will have to shut this down HARD, to keep us from manufacturing pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs wihout the permission of IP "owners" or our frankly insane drug law enforcers.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when I can print Leeloo.

Re:Replicator prototype

[denis-The-menace]

Meanwhile in 2016...

(Pharmaceutical IP "owners") Hello, is this Senators-R-Us? We need Laws to lockout major progress in the Pharmaceutical field to keep drug prices insanely high.
(Senators-R-Us) Bla-bla campaign contribution bla bla Super PAC bla bla
(Pharmaceutical IP "owners") uh huh... And how much will that cost us?
(Senators-R-Us) Bla-bla [$Chump_Change]
(Pharmaceutical IP "owners") Sold! Manila envelop or briefcase?
(Senators-R-Us) Bla-bla Super PAC Lawyers Bla-bla. Not fraud until caught.

Re:Replicator prototype

[ThatsNotPudding]

They will have to shut this down HARD, to keep us from manufacturing pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs wihout the permission of IP "owners" or our frankly insane drug law enforcers.

Wow: Big Pharma's *and* Big Moral Cop's worst nightmare. Here's hoping, anyway.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

(cough)(wheeze)(cough)

bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

You should do stand up.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Lynchenstein]

Not to mention the general freak-out people concerned with clinical trials, good clinical practice, drug safety and the like are going to have. You can "make" whatever you want, but you're going to have to still go through the process of testing, trials, and so on, even it's a copy of an existing drug using new manufacturing techniques. (I think)

Re:Replicator prototype

[ceoyoyo]

If it's a copy of an existing drug the trials are much easier. You don't have to demonstrate efficacy, just equivalence.

I think the OP was getting at printing his own pharmaceuticals though. He can have fun with that.

Re:Replicator prototype

[the gnat]

They will have to shut this down HARD, to keep us from manufacturing pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs wihout the permission of IP "owners" or our frankly insane drug law enforcers.

It will take decades before automated chemical synthesis is advanced enough to allow individual manufacture of patented and/or illegal compounds. And for someone sufficiently determined, it's not all that difficult to get these molecules right now. You just need to contract it out to a lab in China, which has plenty of skilled technicians who will do it the old-fashioned way for much less than the cost of a 3D printer. Moreover, the people who would most benefit from cheaper drugs won't be able to afford the printer either.

Of course, the more likely result is that after a bunch of people die from automatically and illegally synthesized drugs that have undergone very poor quality control and contain major contaminants, everyone else realizes what a bad idea it was.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in 2016...

I don't think you understand how this works....

Re:Replicator prototype

[Applehu Akbar]

I can envision a "pharma singularity" occurring when our supercomputing power is able to model human biology well enough to replace the glacial and unethical plod of double-blind testing. Instead of giving half your population of Ebola patients a placebo and having to lie through your teeth to their grieving relatives, we will be able to directly test new compounds against the model to shortcut right to a final "smoke test" with human patients.

Re: Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

"It will take decades... " ... sentences beginning like this are rarely right anymore, if they ever were.

Re:Replicator prototype

[DMJC]

This is all assuming that the machine itself is easy and low cost to create.... We're yet to see any evidence of that. I'm sure a large scale factory can stamp out cars for $500/vehicle. But that doesn't mean you can buy a car factory for $500, or even a car for that much.

Re:Replicator prototype

[doccus]

Is this the beginning of what could become Star Trek-like replicators?

Yup... With due respect tho the other response below, the op said is this the *beginning* of startrek replicators. And yes. I think so.

Re: Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorrry, the scientists did call it a 3D printer. Watch the video on YouTube.

Re:Replicator prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

calling it a 'printer' is a bit disingenuous.

To be fair, the scientists did not call it a 'printer'. The journalist made that up in an effort to dumb down the story and wedge it into a column on 3D printing.

Yes, the scientists do call it a 3D printer in this video (at 1:29 mark). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_0wC5kDN3s They are describing it in this sense: users may one day be able to use a web browser to custom-order small molecules of x,y,z, etc., specs be delivered to them. In this sense, it is like ordering up a something through a 3D printer. Work needs to be done, for sure. But the roadmap is in place. Interesting research... let's see where it takes them.

Diamond Age

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Diamond Age reference...

Diamonds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Diamonds are carbon-based, but can they be 3D-Printed ?

Re:Diamonds?

[ShanghaiBill]

Diamonds are carbon-based, but can they be 3D-Printed ?

With a combination of CVD and deposition masks, it may be possible to someday 'print' diamonds in complex 3D shapes. We can already do this with silicon, which is chemically closest to carbon. Most silicon photolithography is subtractive, but it can also be additive.

Not 3D chemical printing

[cruff]

From the description in the articles, it appears to function more like a DNA assembly. They start with some basic building blocks with certain chemical groups attached, and react them together to build molecules, freeing those attached groups. It does not appear to be adding individual atoms to individual molecules.

Re:Not 3D chemical printing

[Catbeller]

But it is going there. Nothing can stop it. Ways will be found. Give it ten years. First industrial scale, then expensive professional machines, then someone cracks the manufacturing code, as it were, and we're off to the make-your-own-cocaine-and-rogaine races.

Re:Not 3D chemical printing

[reverseengineer]

Yes, it's a lot like existing solid-state nucleic acid or peptide synthesis setups, but with the major advantage of forming carbon-carbon bonds instead of phosphodiester or amide linkages, making the technique a lot more general. The setup involves a useful reaction called Suzuki coupling. In Suzuki coupling, a metal (usually palladium) catalyzes a reaction between a halide (that is to say, chlorine, bromine, etc.) and an organoboron compound. The mechanism is complex, but the result is a carbon-carbon single bond. This reaction and similar ones are already widely used in the pharmaceutical industry since they can reliably glue together smaller structures together to make a larger molecule. The smaller structures are not individual atoms, though- they tend to have maybe 10-20 atoms or so. Drugs with biaryl structures like the blood pressure drug valsartan are now often made this way.

In previous work, the Burke lab showed that the reaction could be made more convenient by using a specific type of boronate salt which can be easily added and removed from a molecule, and generally produces derivatives that are stable long-term. They then found that these salts can bind to silica and will only be released in the presence of the solvent tetrahydrofuran. So what they did was build a setup that can run this reaction iteratively; at each step, you add another bit of the molecule; each bit has a halide at one end and a boronate salt at the other. This is a lot like an amino acid, which has an amine at one end and a carboxylic acid at the other, which can each react with other amino acids to form chains. Since the molecule bits are shelf-stable, conceivably you could load a machine with a library of commonly used "puzzle pieces" (which you probably bought from a specialty chemicals manufacturer like Sigma-Aldrich or EMD) and assemble them, then wash off the finished product in THF. The yields demonstrated thus far are...not great, but the idea that it can run automated means that it could brute-force some syntheses and allow for the production of complex molecules from more common starting materials. It's a major advance in synthetic organic chemistry, but it's not so much a universal printer as more like an early mechanical printing press, where you still need to provide the type blocks and set the letters yourself.

Re:Not 3D chemical printing

[iluvcapra]

Give it ten years.

Molecular printers, flying cars and fuel-cell smartphones...

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

So great hope for new medicine or new poisons... :P

End of the World as we know it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not saying this will be misused,

But, it will be misused.

Re:End of the World as we know it.

[tnk1]

Yup. Breaking Bad 2030.

useless plastic junk

[Thud457]

Unless this 3D printerer can perform forging operations, the molecules aren't going to have the proper crystal grain and will just be weak junk that won't be anywhere near able to transfer the torque even from a puny Toyota engine.

Re:useless plastic junk

[ColdWetDog]

Wrong printer analogy. Thing drugs, not guns.

"Without chemicals, life itself would not be possible"
                      - Monsanto, 1977

Re:useless plastic junk

[ColdWetDog]

Think...

Come on Slashdot. Editing posts is so 20th Century.

Re:useless plastic junk

[Catbeller]

Finding comments from even a few years ago is likewise so 20th century.

Re:useless plastic junk

[doti]

"Without chemicals, he points"

Fixed

[neminem]

"The impact on the pharmaceutical^Hrecreational drug industry could be staggering."

Yes, I would like to 3d print some lsd, please? :D

(Note to any snoopy snitches who might happen to see that I posted this non-anonymously: I don't mean I *personally* have any intention of wanting to 3d print any currently-illegal recreational compounds... not at all. Nope.)

Re:Fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad i wasn't the first person to think of LSD ;) Would be nice since it's a bitch to synthesize compared to all the other fun molecules...

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceChem for real!

The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[fustakrakich]

Let's hope it's devastating. Anything that could loosen their stranglehold on medicine can only be seen as a good thing. But like the writers guilds back in the day, they will probably try to have the molecular printing press banned.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Mr D from 63]

Let's hope it's devastating.

Hmmm. Think that through. Destruction of the pharmaceutical industry......what could possibly be bad about that?

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[itzly]

Destruction of the pharmaceutical industry......what could possibly be bad about that?

I'm sure you can figure it out if you think about it a little longer.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[fustakrakich]

Oh dear! Somebody might lose their vacation house in the Hamptons! What, do you think nobody will fill in the hole? You don't see opportunity where there was none? What is wrong with prying the market open?

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Anonymous Coward]

There ya go. The costs for many drugs could plummet if access to manufacture were made more easy.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[ColdWetDog]

There ya go. The costs for many drugs could plummet if access to manufacture were made more easy.

Most drugs ARE easy to manufacture. That's what the generic manufacturers do for a living. It's hard to design and test them. It's hard to ensure purity. It's hard to crunch through the legal and bureaucratic wastelands that surround design, testing and manufacturing.

The bulk organic chemistry is actually pretty straightforward.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[fustakrakich]

There are few industries more corrupt than pharmaceuticals. Most of the money goes to buy offs and other backdoor deals to block out any competition. The legal and bureaucratic wastelands are their creation to serve that purpose. Anything at all that can break their stranglehold can only be seen as good, by anybody outside the industry of course.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be letting facts get in the way of our wet dream of making pharmaceutical companies redundant. I was relying on that schadenfreude to get me through the day.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Threni]

Yes yes yes. But they also invent cures and treatments for diseases which blight or end the lives of billions of people (over time). Put down the Russell Brand dvd and signed t-shirt for a moment, and think about who exactly would produce a cure for HIV, cancer etc if everyone can just make copies of compounds the drugs companies produced (at no small cost). Let me guess - you're going to crowdsource it on kickstarter?

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[fustakrakich]

If they didn't do it somebody else would, that would include using the government itself to produce and compete in the market. We don't need big business to corrupt the government to get the things we need.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's depend on a government bureaucrat that will collect their paycheck regardless if they discover a cure for cancer or not.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[fustakrakich]

Well, if you can't be bothered to oversee your government, I guess you shouldn't expect much, doesn't sound like it's their fault though. Competency of a government is only a reflection of the competency of the people that vote it into place.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Your question is essentially "How would we finance medical research if drug patents stopped being effective?"

The Medicare/Medicaid drug reimbursement is more than the yearly total loaded research costs for all drugs, when using the highest available academic estimate as of mid last year (estimates vary wildly, from $100M to $1.8B in for this estimate, by researchers from Lily, a pharmaceutical company). There is one non-peer-reviewed estimate that is even higher ($2.6B), but that is only for NMEs (new molecular entities),(completely new drugs), and multiplying that by all drugs approved each year isn't reasonable, as most approved drugs aren't NMEs. There's about 22 NMEs approved per year. At $2.6 billion each, that's $57.2 billion.

The 2015 federal cost of medicare drug reimbursement is $54.12B - for outpatient subsidies only. Medicaid had a cost of $63.34B (see page 184); this is presumably also excluding inpatients, as hospital costs are listed separately. These two programs sum to $117.46B, or a bit over *twice* the cost of the NMEs. Non-NME costs are much, much lower (tens of millions), and there aren't lots of them, so they don't really add up to much either.

Re:The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's depend on a government bureaucrat that will collect their paycheck regardless if they invent the internet, discover the Higgs boson, do nearly all the fundamental research that another article today says is falling by the wayside due to overly commercial pressures.

Jeez.

Re:Is it just me..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go watch some porn or something and stop trying to prevent other people from discussing something interesting.

The Masses

[vanyel]

Anyone starting a pool on when it'll be used to make designer drugs?

Re:The Masses

[ultranova]

Anyone starting a pool on when it'll be used to make designer drugs?

Probably never, at least on massive scale. The whole point of a designer drug is to dodge classification as illegal, which is pointless if you can simply print the original at home.

However, combined with ever-growing computing power performing molecular simulations this might give rise to a new class of designer drugs that have been actually designed to give desired effects while avoiding unwanted ones. Which is terrible for drug cartels and anti-drug warriors and good for everyone else. I foresee open-sourced drug designs with bugs like addiction being slowly hammered out.

Grey Goo

[Anonymous Coward]

This machine will print out nanites and turn the planet into a giant blob of grey goo.

Re:Grey Goo

[ArcadeMan]

Hopefully, only 40% of it.

Re:Grey Goo

[lister king of smeg]

grey goo is already here we call it bacteria and guess what it hasn't eaten the planet, why because eating the planet require lots and lots of energy. scifi grey goo won't happen.

Re:Grey Goo

[fyngyrz]

Yeah, it's not like lots and lots of free energy is available (cough solar radiation cough), is it?

Disassembler runaway is entirely possible, energy wise, sad to say.

Re:Grey Goo

[lister king of smeg]

yes and solar radiation isn't enough or photosynthesising bacteria would have consumed the earth.

Re:Grey Goo

[fyngyrz]

No, doesn't follow. Bacteria don't exist to consume. They exist to reproduce. And there's no problem doing that, so no pressure to consume anything but the easy stuff. Most of them don't even bother with harvesting radiative energy, preferring to hit sources that have already done some of the work for them.

However, a disassembler has an entirely different imperative, and an entirely different set of capabilities. All it would take for a grey goo scenario is for the one to become uncoupled from the other.

Maybe not so.

[Anonymous Coward]

It does not appear to have significant value at the production level. The cost per quantity is astronomical.

All prototypes are not ready for mass - cheap - production.

Twenty years from now, this device or one like it could be a "replicator" producing things MUCH cheaper.

In the beginning of printing books, those books were obscenely expensive compared to today's printing.

What we may have here is the "Gutenberg press" of replicators.

Re: Maybe not so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he may mean in the sense of it not scaling up reliably. It would suck to make an aids drug that may or may not happen to have a deadly toxin in it. Or a nerve agent...

Re:Maybe not so.

[the gnat]

Manufacturing equipment that is designed to be as flexible as possible on a smaller scale is probably never going to be as efficient and cost-effective as a setup optimized for mass production. A skilled team of organic chemists should be able to figure out a much better way to synthesize molecules that they need massive quantities of. The reason this tool is potentially a huge breakthrough is that it's prohibitively expensive to do this for every molecule you're potentially interested in, versus those you plan to sell for boatloads of money.

Re:Maybe not so.

[king neckbeard]

Assuming that it takes a relatively moderate amount of supplies, it's utility may not be in cheaper production, but cheaper storage and better coverage. Yeah, you aren't going to undercut an industrial process for aspirin because it's so widely used, but if you only need small amount of medicine every now and again, it might be cheaper to make than to store, especially if the drug is volatile.

Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[jeffb (2.718)]

We can no longer buy iodine, or red phosphorus, or acetyl chloride, because they can be used to make meth. If someone makes a machine that can "print" arbitrary small molecules, what makes you think that The Authorities will view these machines any more tolerantly?

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[neo-mkrey]

And forget trying to get your hands on methylamine.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[ColdWetDog]

Probably because they are only capable of synthesizing nanogram quantities of stuff.

It's gonna take a while to make enough to get a buzz. Better pop another beer.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, if there were only some way that people could buy illegal products....

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[SuricouRaven]

Or tetrahydrofuran. I had a very hard time getting hold of that stuff for an experiment.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[SuricouRaven]

Which is actually a nice simple molecule, and not too difficult to synthesize.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not torture The Authorities to death and destroy their civilization including every large stone in their capitol buildings?

Being Free means never allowing convienence to triumph over revenge and rebellion.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[lister king of smeg]

We can no longer buy iodine, or red phosphorus, or acetyl chloride, because they can be used to make meth. If someone makes a machine that can "print" arbitrary small molecules, what makes you think that The Authorities will view these machines any more tolerantly?

you can also processe those out of other things phospher for example can be processed out of urine (that was how it was discovered in the first place) iodine can be bought at in water purification kits for backpacking. where theres a will theres a way.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[friesofdoom]

Mmmm yeah! Hofmann rearrangement... always fun to try at home ;)

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for THF control is :
One danger posed by THF follows from its tendency to form highly-explosive peroxides on storage in air.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[Headw1nd]

Really? They went after iodine? It was bad enough a few years back when they made it hard as hell to get lye (which seems to have changed somehow) but iodine? Especially seeing as how its super easy to get from KI, which is still available everywhere. Someone needs to start a campaign against the war on chemistry while we can still buy glassware.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[jeffb (2.718)]

Sure, but not at all easily. (Okay, iodine's easy if you can get hold of an iodide.) I've seen documentation of a homebrew project that successfully produced a small amount of phosphorus. It's definitely not a process I'd be willing to try, at least not in any building where I'm responsible for paying insurance.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[jeffb (2.718)]

Someone needs to start a campaign against the war on chemistry while we can still buy glassware.

Know how I can tell you don't live in Texas?

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[SuricouRaven]

Tricky, but no more so than the other steps of meth-making.

Chemistry supplies can be hard these days. I've just delivered some 4-nitroaniline to a friend, but I had to order it from some dodgy ebay seller in Ukraine - next we order the sulfuric acid. High-speed camera is ready to film. I think you can guess what we're planning to put on youtube.

Yes, we have a place out of doors and gloves to handle it - I know that stuff is really toxic.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[SuricouRaven]

Before you start trying to warn us:
- The outside area has very little in the way of animal life, and almost all the 4-nitroaniline should be used up. The very small quantity released will break down safely.
- We're ordering filter mask too. Probably overkill considering how small a quantity we are using, but better safe than sorry.
- I've read the MSDS.

I know this stuff is toxic, precautions are being taken. There's no real purpose to this: It's just for fun and youtube hits.

Re:Sorry, it's a drug precursor. Not yours.

[Headw1nd]

Wow...that is unfortunate, I would not have guessed Texas. At least you can buy guns!

Re:Is it just me..?

[Anonymous Coward]

No there are others here who prefer to anonymously bemoan the articles that get posted, yet they still read and then post on said articles. Not only is that annoying, but its not unique either Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous Snowflake.

Solid Phase Synthesis/Combinatorial Chemistry

[fonske]

Not sure what the difference is...

Growing Diamonds

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought growing diamonds required a fairly obscene amount of pressure?

Re:Growing Diamonds

[ArcadeMan]

When your wife wants a diamond she also generates a fairly obscene amount of pressure on your budget.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[tnk1]

If only that sort of pressure could be re-purposed to start fusion plants....

Maybe we can get deBeers in the energy business. They're very good at creating high amounts of pressure for selling clear rocks made of carbon already.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[ShanghaiBill]

I thought growing diamonds required a fairly obscene amount of pressure?

No. Natural diamonds form that way, and in the past HPHT (high pressure, high temp) methods were used to manufacture low grade diamonds for use as abrasives. But today, most diamonds are manufactured using CVD, with operates in near vacuum. CVD is cheaper, produces better quality diamonds, and can work with odd geometries. It can also be used to put a diamond layer on an existing substrate. But we still don't have diamond coated frying pans.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[vivian]

I think the lack of diamond coated frying pans is more because diamonds actually aren't forever, and the first time you burned your pan, your expensive nano diamond coating would sublime off into carbon dioxide.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea . Let's sell this idea to De Beers.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the lack of diamond coated frying pans is more because diamonds actually aren't forever, and the first time you burned your pan, your expensive nano diamond coating would sublime off into carbon dioxide.

According to this page:

Diamond’s ignition point is 720 – 800 C in oxygen and 850 – 1000 C in air. The flame is blue when diamond is burning.

You're doing something seriously wrong if your frying pans are getting anywhere close to 850 C.

Re:Growing Diamonds

[vivian]

You have obviously never seen my cooking. Believe me, it can happen. I have been known to burn water. Actually the water evaporated off, leaving whatever minerals were left - it still made a hell of a mess of the pot though.
Never try to code while you are cooking.

Pro or Con for Big Pharma ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they don't own the machines.. and patents aren't enforced.. people could print up any drug they like.

Big loss for Pharma profits fall

Of course if they convince people they are worth the Brand.. then Big Pharma manufacturing costs fall

Of course people reproducing and manufacturing new people without a license is also a Big problem for Big Pharma !

Whatabout Designer People?

[Anonymous Coward]

Khan could have used one of these things..

Then there wouldn't be any more anomalies like those Kirk Things...

Khaaaannnn !

Re:Suggestion for filtering front page stories???

[lister king of smeg]

I would like to filter the following ever-expanding list of terms:
3d print, make community, maker, hackerspace, ruby, ruby on rails, disrupt, women in tech, code.org, zuckerberg

I need push updates on:
Bennett Haselton, hugh pickens, and /. beta news.

Thanks a million.

What you really need a greasemonkey userscript to change all Zuckerburg to Zoidberg.

Deus Ex Universal Constructor comes in mind...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Combined with an advanced 3D printer, this concoction could be precursor to the aforementioned.

Re:Deus Ex Universal Constructor comes in mind...?

[Tyrannicsupremacy]

^Someone boost this post up as Funny.^

A coming nightmare for our owners

[Catbeller]

This is the beginning, of course.
Imagine the fainting freakout when they realize that we (if we were allowed to have a printer) make any drug we like. Or explosive. Or ammunition. Or laser components.
Don't bother imagining what the world's imaginary property "owners" will immediately demand - and receive - in the way of DRM and strict drone-and-goon raids on anyone who dares make an object they "own".
And further imagine the flaming worldwide war against printers when they realize we will be able to make electronic and photonic computers and comm systems that don't have their cute back doors built in from the factory or installed at the intercept point they use to infiltrate routers and other computing devices.
Phones: tracked. Computers: pwned. Unauthorized software and video/audio recordings will shortly become drone-and-goon felonies on every corner of the planet, as soon as Obama fast tracks the treaty. How about a raise of hands for those of you who understand that owning a chemical printer, much less an product printer, without real-time monitoring by entities outside our control will be likewise a drone-and-goon felony.

Re:A coming nightmare for our owners

[Prune]

Take your argument of freedom of manufacture to its logical conclusion: several decades from now these technologies allow literally anyone to "print" a biological agent that's more infectious than influenza and deadlier than rabies, with high mutation rates that makes countermeasures difficult to develop, yet designed to preserve it's virulence and deadlines, and with sufficiently long incubation time that by the time it's noticed, it's too late. Or, give it some more time, and anyone can "print" a world-consuming nanotechnological grey goo. Suggesting technological defenses are feasible is a naive failure to recognize a fundamental asymmetry: destruction is far easier than creation, and chaos is thermodynamically favorable. There are only three options for the long term: humanity is destroyed, access to advanced technology is severely limited but for our overlords, or it's allowed but privacy is dead — absolutely — with constant ubiquitous automated monitoring everywhere and of everything. Pick one.

Re:A coming nightmare for our owners

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking of chemical agents myself. There are simple, toxic gasses that are easy to make (simpler than nerve gasses for instance). They wouldn't need complicated blueprints like an infectious agent would, or any new research really. Make a machine that replicates itself, _and_ produces the agent. Turn it loose.

Parent is right that this kind of technology is what will force humanity into its endgame. We just have to wait (less than a hundred years), and this sort of technology will become accessible to single individuals. Then you have millions or billions of opportunities to make such a doomsday replicator, and you only need one person to be crazy enough to actually do it.

(Which would sure explain the Fermi Paradox, huh?)

Re:A coming nightmare for our owners

[Anonymous Coward]

wish i didn't agree with you, :builds glass house:

Re:A coming nightmare for our owners

[Anonymous Coward]

lol nevermind, glass being any less private simply an illusion

Re:A coming nightmare for our owners

[Anonymous Coward]

Take your argument of freedom of manufacture to its logical conclusion: several decades from now these technologies allow literally anyone to "print" a biological agent that's more infectious than influenza and deadlier than rabies, with high mutation rates that makes countermeasures difficult to develop, yet designed to preserve it's virulence and deadlines, and with sufficiently long incubation time that by the time it's noticed, it's too late. Or, give it some more time, and anyone can "print" a world-consuming nanotechnological grey goo. Suggesting technological defenses are feasible is a naive failure to recognize a fundamental asymmetry: destruction is far easier than creation, and chaos is thermodynamically favorable. There are only three options for the long term: humanity is destroyed, access to advanced technology is severely limited but for our overlords, or it's allowed but privacy is dead — absolutely — with constant ubiquitous automated monitoring everywhere and of everything. Pick one.

Can't we have all three?

Funniest Sentence in Months

[ralphsiegler]

" For those of you who are not chemists, small molecules are organic compounds with very low molecular weight of less than 900 daltons. " Now that is a funny sentence.

Re:Funniest Sentence in Months

[jeffb (2.718)]

Yeah, I had to chuckle at that one too. I mean, it looked to me like Dalton was a pretty beefy guy; something that weighed less than 900 times as much as him could still be huge...

And the printer's ink cartridges cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Printer Division executives at HP must be doing hand stands right about now.

Drug costs and the potential here

[fyngyrz]

Unfortunately, the cost of the vast majority of pharmaceuticals is hardly related at all to the cost of the ingredients.

It's the R and D, the testing, the approvals, the red tape and paperwork, the patents, the lawyers, the lawsuits, other stuff along those lines, and of course the requirement to make a profit.

What this has the potential to bring in is a time where prototyping a drug from theoretical compound-might-do-this to have-compound-will-test is a practical reality.

Much drug generation is truly blind -- essentially, find a compound (rain forest, sea creature, etc.) and try it on a bunch of problems, see what happens. This could benefit a different approach, one that requires more up-front understanding and insight into what problem X might respond to. You could also use it with a shotgun approach, but with billions of possibilities (and probably more, later), it seems like one "shotgun" blast would require so much testing as to be wholly impractical.

Re:Drug costs and the potential here

[king neckbeard]

And those costs are gone for you as an end user if you print your own drugs.

Re:Drug costs and the potential here

[fyngyrz]

And those costs are gone for you as an end user if you print your own drugs.

Absolutely. As is any notion of safety. :)

Re:Drug costs and the potential here

[towermac]

There is still the notion that: A known compound that other people have already taken...

So, some notion of safety.

I can see

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Pharma and other large chemical companies banning together to crush this technology so it never makes it into the general populous.

more drugs

[AndyKron]

Imagine being able to 3D print any drug you want. That's disruptive technology!

When these get more advanced....

[gestalt_n_pepper]

1) Buy raw materials.
2) Download molecular template for popular entertainment drugs.
3) Profit!

Seriously, when complex chemical printing becomes cheap and ubiquitous (and it will), the war on drugs will get even *more* ridiculous than it is now.

On the hilariously amusing side, pharmaceutical company profits go into the toilet.

Re:When these get more advanced....

[Anonymous Coward]

arent most of the more popular drugs trivially harvested from plants?

Is buying a complex, expensive and likely regulated machine actually easier than growing arbitrary plants?

Ah ha...

[Anonymous Coward]

We may have our explanation for Fermi's Paradox.

printed, smelled...

[G4Cube]

Another industry panting for this is the Perfume giants.

invention of century

[Anonymous Coward]

This invention could lead to replicator hardware.
This could be greatest invention of this century and true liberator of mankind. Unfortunately - these devices are not compatible with current capitalist system..

Coke machine!!

[Anonymous Coward]

But after you snort your purchase you'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company....

Most posts here are completely besides the point

[Wdi]

Yes, it is mildly interesting. But professionals do not even agree whether it is a significant new tech at all. And if is is, it is most certainly not for production of compounds in measurable quantity (e.g. more than a few mg at most). The only agreement is that the researcher is known for good marketing and a big ego.

Here are links to interesting discussions by people who actually know what they are posting about:

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/03/12/the_end_of_synthesis.php
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/03/13/objections_to_the_end_of_synthesis.php

I have four words for you:

[TeknoHog]

From http://www.sciencemag.org/cont...

Synthesis of many different types of organic small molecules using one automated process Junqi Li, Steven G. Ballmer, Eric P. Gillis, Seiko Fujii, Michael J. Schmidt, Andrea M. E. Palazzolo, Jonathan W. Lehmann, Greg F. Morehouse, and Martin D. Burke

Moleculers! Moleculers! Moleculers! Moleculers!

Oh Boy

[JimSadler]

So how much study does it take to find out what uses and hazards exist with each new molecule? The complexity of doing deep studies on each new molecule is mind boggling. And what about substances created by combining these new molecules? Why do I feel like it would take a billion advanced chemists several billion years to deal with this?

Re:Oh Boy

[__aanbvm4272]

Simple That's why we stick to the 'proven molecules' 1st.

The impact on the pharmaceutical industry

[__aanbvm4272]

" The impact on the pharmaceutical industry could be staggering." Let me offer my deepest sympathy to the PAY MY PRICE OR DIE pharmaceutical industry. Other than making everybody feel like they are 2nd class citizens, doing without the newest latest drug product ADS on TV. And not adequate without some bone stiffening miracle product. They provide a very useful function. Keeping us from seeing our shows without (repeat the last 2 lines over and over all day.) Affordable health care should NOT involve the government paying their price but CONTROLLING their price Damn it.

I'm not looking forward to....

[vandamme]

....changing the cartridge in an HP molecular printer, just because the zinc ran out.

wrong headline

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with 3d printing. This is an automatic synthesizer, a generalisation of peptide synthesizers to Suzuki coupling. No more than that, but still a breakthrough indeed.