At a talk on green nanotechnology this morning, Barbara Karn—currently on leave from the Environmental Protection Agency to work at the Woodrow Wilson Center—said that the model and inspiration for the eco-savvy nanotechnologist could be a living cell…
Green nanotechnology has the dual aims of making nano safe for health and the environment, and making nano that improves health and the environment. They want the bitsy tools to save the world, through remediation and so on, but they also want to make sure that they are made in a green way (and, presumably, that they don’t turn on their masters and engulf us all in nano-chaos).
The cell does this already. Using DNA as a cookbook, it makes proteins that are just there at the nano size—useful, complex proteins. And it does it all at room (or, I guess, body) temperature with a nontoxic solvent: water.
“It’s a challenge to make what we need in the same kind of environmentally benign way that nature makes what it needs,” said Karn, who called cells “nanofactories”.
Karn’s group at the Woodrow Wilson Center launched a website earlier this month that lists products available to consumers that include nanotechnology. So if you want to check out the nano-content of your sun-block, pants, or computer screen, visit their database, a link to which is available on their website: https://www.nanotechproject.com/.
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