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To: Myrddin
"... my skills as a molecular biologist are getting dated. Computer science, electrical engineering and a focus on embedded systems is what pays the bills right now."

It could be that your skills as a molecular biologist are what are needed to build the biological versions of nano-robots, or the biological machines that will build the robots.

My skills as a molecular biologist are that I recognize some of the words.

11 posted on 01/28/2006 6:33:08 PM PST by NicknamedBob (And then I sat down and I wrote this report, ‘cause I knew that you’d want all the facts.)
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To: NicknamedBob
It could be that your skills as a molecular biologist are what are needed to build the biological versions of nano-robots, or the biological machines that will build the robots.

Bioinformatics is the interdisciplinary mix of my skill sets. Determining protein geometry was done by purification, crystallization and X ray crystallography in the 70's. Today, you sequence the protein and put it into a modeling program. Tweak the temperature, pH and ionic strength of the environment and you can predict how the protein will fold. That is the rudiments of designer proteins that perform custom tasks by design instead of evolving by genetic mishap.

I'm already somewhat involved in MEMS devices to leverage nanotechnology to create tiny accelerometers. My aim is to plant a MEMS accelerometer with a small digital signal processor and Bluetooth/Zigbee transceiver on a railcar bearing to transmit the current bearing defect profile. I'm doing that with large devices today. MEMS will cut costs, size and make the technology economically viable.

12 posted on 01/28/2006 7:49:19 PM PST by Myrddin
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