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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.
Is this the beginning of what could become Star Trek-like replicators?
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Obligatory Diamond Age reference...
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.
Not saying this will be misused,
But, it will be misused.
"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.)
Wrong printer analogy. Thing drugs, not guns.
"Without chemicals, life itself would not be possible"
- Monsanto, 1977
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Think...
Come on Slashdot. Editing posts is so 20th Century.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Anyone starting a pool on when it'll be used to make designer drugs?
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?
Not sure what the difference is...
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: /. beta news.
Bennett Haselton, hugh pickens, and
Thanks a million.
What you really need a greasemonkey userscript to change all Zuckerburg to Zoidberg.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
When your wife wants a diamond she also generates a fairly obscene amount of pressure on your budget.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Hopefully, only 40% of it.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
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.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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.
" 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.
Finding comments from even a few years ago is likewise so 20th century.
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
^Someone boost this post up as Funny.^
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
"Without chemicals, he points"
factor 966971: 966971
Imagine being able to 3D print any drug you want. That's disruptive technology!
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.
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.
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yes and solar radiation isn't enough or photosynthesising bacteria would have consumed the earth.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
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.
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
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!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
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?
" 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.
....changing the cartridge in an HP molecular printer, just because the zinc ran out.
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.
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.
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