The Best of Both Worlds: Combining Inorganic and Organic Nanotechnology
Most people think nanotechnology is remarkable for its size—and who wouldn’t be amazed by complex machines smaller than the width of a human hair? But what also makes nanotechnology unique is its ability to combine living and non-living materials into one integrated machine.
Even without this combination, nanotechnology has amazing applications: nanowires that detect DNA sequences, nanotubes that deliver drugs or destroy cancer cells, and biomolecules that scientists can use as blueprints to create next-generation nano-sized objects. But the true promise of nanotechnology will only be realized when we discover better ways to combine the inorganic materials, like nanowires and nanotubes, with organic materials, including proteins and nucleic acids. Only then can we create machines that are as complex—or perhaps even more complex—than the countless normal-sized machines and technologies we use each day.
Dr. Tian Tang, Canada Research Chair in Nano-biomolecular Hybrid Materials, is developing new ways to understand how nano-sized organic and inorganic materials interact. Although the materials are fundamentally different—one is living, the other not—similar rules of physics govern their interactions. But these rules interact in complex and varying ways: at any time, numerous forces, including electrostatic interaction, elastic force, entropy and adhesive forces, can all be having an effect on the nanostructures.
Sorting out which forces apply where, and how, is key to being able to advance nanotechnology. To gain this understanding, Tang uses a variety of computer simulations, some of which attempt to provide a realistic, atom-by-atom picture of what is happening in interactions. Other computer simulations take this complex information and strip it down to representations of key processes.
With this information, Tang will develop new models and computational tools that will help reduce the time needed to design and engineer nano-biomolecular hybrid materials. Ideally, this will help scientists better use the remarkable self-assembling nature of molecules, which, under the right conditions, automatically join up in predictable combinations, saving scientists from having to stack them together piece by piece like toy blocks when building nanomachines.
By harnessing these remarkable self-assembly processes and combining them with our ability to make a range of useful nano-sized materials, we will be able to have the best of both worlds, producing new nano-sized machines that will be useful in electronics, computing, manufacturing and health. Tang’s research will also help ensure Canada is at the forefront of this field, which is expected to be one of the most commercially important and fastest-moving areas of heath and engineering in the 21st century.