Nano by Robin Cook Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robin Cook
It’s the main thing I have been doing, and we’re making progress. There was a breakthrough of sorts when I suggested that some oligosaccharide polymers be incorporated into the microbivore’s diamondoid surface.”
George couldn’t keep himself from wincing at this comment. Pia was talking way over his head. He vaguely remembered the word
oligosaccharide
from first-year biochemistry—something about complex sugars—but that was about all. To divert attention from his ignorance, he quickly said, “You mentioned back in the apartment having some scanning electron microscope images of these microbivores. Can I see them so that I have an idea of what we’re talking about?”
“Good idea,” Pia said with enthusiasm. She led George to a nearby computer terminal, and with a few clicks she brought up an image. She stood aside and proudly gestured toward the screen. The image was in black-and-white, showing multiple, dark, shiny microbivores in the presence of a larger donut-shaped object. Pia pointed toward the object. “That’s a red blood cell. The rest are the microbivores.”
George stepped closer for a good view. What he saw amazed him. “They look like spaceships with a big mouth.”
“I never thought of it that way, but I see your point.”
“What are all these circular objects arranged around the hull?”
“Those are the sensors that detect the targeted microorganism or protein, as the case may be. They also contain reversal binding sites to cause the target to stick. The very tiny circles surrounding each sensor are the grapplers that come out to move the target along the microbivore in a kind of bucket-brigade fashion before pulling it into the digestion chamber.”
“Is that what this hole is?”
“That’s right. Once the target has been swallowed, so to speak, it is enzymatically digested into harmless by-products, which are then pushed back out into the bloodstream.”
“And this whole thing is six times smaller than the width of a human hair? It seems incredible.”
“It’s got to be that small to get through the smallest capillary, which is about four microns in diameter.”
George straightened up and looked at Pia. She was still doing well with maintaining eye contact with him. “How does this miniature robot know what to do and when to do it?”
“It has an onboard computer,” Pia said. “Thanks to nano circuitry and nano transistors, it has a computer with five million bits of code, twenty percent more than the Cassini spacecraft had in its onboard computer on its mission to Saturn.”
“It’s all hard to believe,” George said, and he meant it.
“Welcome to the future. When we get back to my apartment I’ll give you an article on microbivores written more than a decade ago by a futurist named Robert Freitas. He predicted all this back when molecular manufacturing was nothing but a pipe dream. It’s pretty exhaustive.”
“I bet that’s fun reading,” George said, unable to resist a bit of sarcasm. Luckily it went over Pia’s head, as she had returned her attention back to the microbivores image. From her expression and posture, he could tell how proud she was about what she was doing.
“I think you’ll find it fascinating.”
“So doing this is what the head-hunters brought you out here to Boulder for?”
“No. What brought me out here was that the CEO, Berman, had read about Rothman’s work on salmonella that I was involved with. You see, from an operational standpoint, microbivores are having a problem with bacteria that have a flagellum. You know, little whiplike tails, like salmonella has. When the microbivores ingest a salmonella, the flagellum doesn’t get into the digestion chamber but rather gets detached and floats off, and the flagellum can cause as much immunologic havoc as the intact bacteria. With my experience with salmonella in Rothman’s lab, they thought maybe I could help with this problem.”
“Were you able to help?”
“Well,
George couldn’t keep himself from wincing at this comment. Pia was talking way over his head. He vaguely remembered the word
oligosaccharide
from first-year biochemistry—something about complex sugars—but that was about all. To divert attention from his ignorance, he quickly said, “You mentioned back in the apartment having some scanning electron microscope images of these microbivores. Can I see them so that I have an idea of what we’re talking about?”
“Good idea,” Pia said with enthusiasm. She led George to a nearby computer terminal, and with a few clicks she brought up an image. She stood aside and proudly gestured toward the screen. The image was in black-and-white, showing multiple, dark, shiny microbivores in the presence of a larger donut-shaped object. Pia pointed toward the object. “That’s a red blood cell. The rest are the microbivores.”
George stepped closer for a good view. What he saw amazed him. “They look like spaceships with a big mouth.”
“I never thought of it that way, but I see your point.”
“What are all these circular objects arranged around the hull?”
“Those are the sensors that detect the targeted microorganism or protein, as the case may be. They also contain reversal binding sites to cause the target to stick. The very tiny circles surrounding each sensor are the grapplers that come out to move the target along the microbivore in a kind of bucket-brigade fashion before pulling it into the digestion chamber.”
“Is that what this hole is?”
“That’s right. Once the target has been swallowed, so to speak, it is enzymatically digested into harmless by-products, which are then pushed back out into the bloodstream.”
“And this whole thing is six times smaller than the width of a human hair? It seems incredible.”
“It’s got to be that small to get through the smallest capillary, which is about four microns in diameter.”
George straightened up and looked at Pia. She was still doing well with maintaining eye contact with him. “How does this miniature robot know what to do and when to do it?”
“It has an onboard computer,” Pia said. “Thanks to nano circuitry and nano transistors, it has a computer with five million bits of code, twenty percent more than the Cassini spacecraft had in its onboard computer on its mission to Saturn.”
“It’s all hard to believe,” George said, and he meant it.
“Welcome to the future. When we get back to my apartment I’ll give you an article on microbivores written more than a decade ago by a futurist named Robert Freitas. He predicted all this back when molecular manufacturing was nothing but a pipe dream. It’s pretty exhaustive.”
“I bet that’s fun reading,” George said, unable to resist a bit of sarcasm. Luckily it went over Pia’s head, as she had returned her attention back to the microbivores image. From her expression and posture, he could tell how proud she was about what she was doing.
“I think you’ll find it fascinating.”
“So doing this is what the head-hunters brought you out here to Boulder for?”
“No. What brought me out here was that the CEO, Berman, had read about Rothman’s work on salmonella that I was involved with. You see, from an operational standpoint, microbivores are having a problem with bacteria that have a flagellum. You know, little whiplike tails, like salmonella has. When the microbivores ingest a salmonella, the flagellum doesn’t get into the digestion chamber but rather gets detached and floats off, and the flagellum can cause as much immunologic havoc as the intact bacteria. With my experience with salmonella in Rothman’s lab, they thought maybe I could help with this problem.”
“Were you able to help?”
“Well,