Combining advantages of different selfassembly technologies
Contents
Comparison of pros & cons of different self-assembly and synthetic technologies
Structural DNA nanotechnology (SDN) has:
- High termination control (and lots of site addressability) but
- Low stiffness (and large lattice spacing)
Structural de-novo protein nanotechnology (SPN) has:
- Low termination control (and rather minimal site addressabbility) but
- High stiffness (and small lattice spacing)
Spiroligomers and other highly polycyclic small molecules:
- Are limited in size and structure by the limits of chemical synthesis.
- Have very high stiffness (lattice does not apply)
Further subdivision for de-novo peptides synthesis technologies
De-novo proteins can be synthesized:
- either by employing the machinery of living cells
- or by doing the synthesis fully synthetically (abiotically)
Biotically synthesized long peptides (aka proteins):
- pro: longer chainlengths are possible
- con: limited range of side-chains possible
Basically the amino-acids and a bit more by some nontrivial difficult tricks.
Abiotically syntehiszed pepides (more expensive)
- con: only short chainlengths are possible
- pro: all sorts of exotic side-chains are possible to be added.
Heck even exotic foldamers with other backbones are theoretically possible.
Limits when used alone
Using SDN alone one ...
- can build bigger frameworks with reaonable engineering like geometry
- cannot achive positional assembly capabilites sufficient for materials that require positional atomic precision
Using SPN alone one ...
- cannot (yet) build bigger frameworks with reasonable engineering like geometry (that terminate in selfassembly controlledly!)
- can perhaps achieve sufficient stiffness for positional assembly capabilities sufficient for materials that require positional atomic precision
Using spiroligomers alone one ...
- cannot build really big frameworks at all
- can most likely achieve sufficient stiffness for positional atomic precision
How to combine them
To get both
- sufficient termination control and site addressability and
- sufficient stiffness for eventual positional atomic precision
at the same time as soon as possible
one perhaps viable strategy might be to insert:
- (1) stiffest smallest small molecules into
- (2) smaller stiffer self-assemblies (de-novo proteins – SPN) into
- (3) larger less stiff self-assemblies (DNA structures – SDN)
Tracing the kinematic loop from workpiece over frame across actuators over frame to tooltip:
At all the interfaces the stiffness-per-area times area product must be sufficient.
This allows for a softer frame while still retaining sufficiently high stiffness at the critical spots
As a further subdivision to the middle step (2) from above:
- integrate small abiotically synthesized peptides (with exotic high stiffness small molecule side-chains attached)
- into big biotically synthesized stiff de-novo proteins (which are much more limited in possible side chains).
Side-notes
There is no positional atomic precision in SDN – likely
Stiffness of structural DNA nanotechnology in fact is so, that
there likely is only topological atomic precision possible and not positional atomic precision.
There have been experiments that have shown subatomic precision, but only in statistical average
(wiki-TODO: investigate more closely & add reference)
Alternative approaches
There is a way to place atoms to positional atomic precision
without achieving positional atomic precision in the positional assembly of the placement mechanism.
The gist is self centering of pre-built blocks with a higher latent internal precision than the precision of the placement mechanism.
For details see main page: Bootstrapping atomic precision
Related
- Fat finger problem
- stiffness-per-area also callable area-specific-stiffness
- Lattice scaled stiffness
