Chemistry has always been a daunting subject. When confronted with working on the molecular level, extreme precision is required. For many researchers the process of working with small molecules requires such long-durations and precise equipment to synthesize that it prevents them from doing any fundamental research.
To stop this production bottleneck Martin Burke, a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has been developing a “3D Printer” that can replicate what nature does when it builds small molecules. Key to Burke’s machine is an understanding that there is a small number of small molecules that nature uses to produce a large portion of life’s chemistry. Knowing that Nature has a modular source code, Burke’s team set out to replicate this design.
According to Burke, his new chemical synthesizer takes the modular building blocks of small molecules, each of which has two chemical connectors, and binds them together using a well-known chemical reaction. As of yet, Burke and his team have been able to synthesize 14 small molecules, in the future they hope they can expand their small molecule building set.
Still, even with a limited palate, quite a lot can be done.
“We are showing that with a very reasonable number of building blocks we can make many different types of natural products,” said Burke. By which Burke means that with his new printer researchers can begin constructing complex natural products like medicines, LEDs and even more efficient solar cells at an atom-by-atom scale.
“The vision is that anybody could go to a website, pick the building blocks they want, instruct their assembly through the web, and the small molecules would get synthesized and shipped,” Burke says. “We're not there yet, but we now have an actionable roadmap toward on-demand small-molecule synthesis for non-specialists.”
Whether on-demand, complex chemistry is a good thing to have at your disposal is debatable. However, if real, personalized medicine is ever to mature into a genuine treatment strategy then technologies like Burke’s will be a necessity. What’s more, when anyone can build structures from the molecule up, technology on every level has the chance to explode in directions that are unimaginable today.
Today, Burke’s printer is exciting the world of chemistry. In a few decades its might be exciting the entire technological scene; possibly even replacing the most advanced metal, composite and other 3D printers with a machine that builds according to Nature’s laws.
Source: HHMI