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1. Nanobots to Fight Cancer............................................................................................................................. 1
23 October 2014 ii ProQuest
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Nanobots to Fight Cancer
Author: Tucker, Patrick

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Abstract: Medical nanorobots may soon be leaving the Petri dish and making their way to a drugstore near you.
A team of researchers from the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has created a DNA-
based nanorobot that can safely carry molecule-sized payloads, detect cancer, and attack that cancer with
medicine. The bot itself is less of a drone and more of a complex piece of fabric. Hundreds of short, single-
stranded DNA pieces wrap themselves around a scaffold, like the warp and weft in weaving cloth, according to
researcher Shawn Douglas. Writers and futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Robert Freitas have suggested that, in
the year 2030, nanorobots will carry more oxygen to our blood, repair cellular damage, rid our bodies of toxins,
and help us reverse- engineer a human brain.
Links: Available at KU Leuven?
Full text: Headnote
Medicine | SCI/TeCH
Built from DNA, robots may deliver medicine where no doctor has gone before.
Medical nanorobots may soon be leaving the Petri dish and making their way to a drugstore near you. A team of
researchers from the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has created a DNA-based
nanorobot that can safely carry molecule-sized payloads, detect cancer, and attack that cancer with medicine.
The bot itself is less of a drone and more of a complex piece of fabric. Hundreds of short, single-stranded DNA
pieces wrap themselves around a scaffold, "like the warp and weftin weaving cloth," according to researcher
Shawn Douglas.
The mechanism for depositing the payload isn't an electronic actuator, as you would find in a conventional
robot, but a chemical reaction. When the nanobots meet up with a particular protein that can indicate cancer (in
their experiment, Douglas and his team used a leukemic cell marker), the nanostructure unlocks itself and
releases a cancer-fighting antigen. The process is similar to the way viruses attack cells; the primary difference
is that Douglas's nanobots don't hijack the cell to reproduce, as natural viruses do.
"Viruses (made of various combinations of protein, nucleic acids, and lipids) offer a good template for what
materials work for performing complex interactions and manipulations of cells," said Douglas in an e-mail.
The research follows (but does not necessarily build upon) the work of New York University chemistry professor
Nadrian Seeman, credited with pioneering the field of DNA-based nanostructures to perform complicated tasks.
But do these bio-based nano-creations still qualify as robots, or are they simply complex drugs?
"There isn't any established definition of a 'nanorobot,'" said Douglas. "We asked robotics expert Rob Wood at
Harvard about the term, and he said to describe what it does in general terms. We said that it senses friend or
foe, and when a foe is sensed, it changes shape and attacks. He said this sounded similar to some military
robots, and didn't think the term was unjustified."
Writers and futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Robert Freitas have suggested that, in the year 2030, nanorobots
will carry more oxygen to our blood, repair cellular damage, rid our bodies of toxins, and help us reverse-
engineer a human brain. Specifically, in his landmark book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend
Biology (Viking, 2005), Kurzweil remarked that, in the 2020s, we could use complex nanomechanisms to
"eliminate the accumulation of DNA transcription errors, one major source of the aging process. We could
introduce DNA changes to essentially reprogram our genes. ... We would also be able to defeat biological
pathogens ... by blocking any unwanted replication of genetic information."
23 October 2014 Page 1 of 3 ProQuest
Douglas says he "would be very surprised" if the more bold predictions of Kurzweil and Freitas came to pass.
"We probably need a much better understanding of the basic science before we can achieve such sophisticated
manipulations of our biology," he said.
Douglas's own aspirations for the future of the field are relatively restrained in comparison. He expressed
cautious optimism that, within 20 years, "there will be at least one FDA-approved treatment that employs
nanoscale devices that can perform actions approaching the sophistication of simple viruses (cell targeting,
payload delivery, or reprogramming the cell). I think reprogramming and repurposing existing viruses also
sounds like a promising approach."
Sidebar
These nanorobots developed by Harvard researchers are programmed to carry antigens to cancer sites and
release their payload when they come into contact with cancer tissue.
Sources: "A Logic-Gated Nanorobot for Targeted Transport of Molecular Payloads" by S. M. Douglas, I.
Bachelet, and G. M. Church, Science (February 17, 2012).
Shawn Douglas (interview), Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University,
http://wyss.harvard.edu
Subject: Nanotechnology; Robots; Medical research; Cancer therapies;
Location: United States--US
Classification: 9190: United States; 5240: Software & systems; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: The Futurist
Volume: 46
Issue: 3
Pages: 15-16
Number of pages: 2
Publication year: 2012
Publication date: May/Jun 2012
Publisher: World Future Society
Place of publication: Washington
Country of publication: United States
Publication subject: Sciences: Comprehensive Works, Technology: Comprehensive Works
ISSN: 00163317
CODEN: FUTUAC
Source type: Scholarly Journals
Language of publication: English
Document type: Feature
Document feature: Illustrations
ProQuest document ID: 1019030724
Document URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1019030724?accountid=17215
Copyright: Copyright World Future Society May/Jun 2012
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Last updated: 2012-09-12
Database: ProQuest Central
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