Biological Computation: A Practical Examination of Nanobot Drug DeliveryConnor Herring and Anthony Sciulli

Abstract

Current methods of biopharmaceutical delivery such as intravenous injection or oral ingestion are widely accepted and used in the medical field. While these methods of delivery are effective, they are not always specific enough at exclusively targeting harmful cells or infectious agents. As a result these drugs can be over-distributed throughout the body and may lead to unwanted or dangerous side effects. The field of nanotechnology may provide a solution to this issue through the use of technology that allows for precise control over drugs and their delivery to specific cells. A new technology still under development by a team of researchers from the Bar-llan University Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials is already capable of locating cancer cells and delivering drugs to only those harmful cells. It has already been shown that these DNA nanobots can identify ten different types of cancer and can deliver dozens of different drugs to cells of interest. This means that many of our current biopharmaceuticals which have negative side effects or excessive toxicity levels may now be able to be more accurately delivered to a diseased area in the body. Drugs that have the potential to mitigate maladies such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and others could have an effective and accurate means of transportation to their target destination in a patient’s body. The implications of this sort of technology may not even be fully realized yet. However, having this sort of control over the functions of biopharmaceuticals could allow humans to fight the most devastating diseases, revive old drugs, and design biological computers capable of diagnosing and treating diseases autonomously.

What is Nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology is any technology which is developed at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular scale. These structures, devices, and systems are generally on length scale of approximately 1–100 nanometers.

Nanotechnology is a broad field with applications in materials science, electronics, sustainable energy, environmental engineering, and of course, medicine.

DNA Origami

DNA origami is a technique started over 30 years ago and perfected within the last decade by researcher Paul Rothemund from Caltech University.

The technology revoloves around ussing a computer aided design software to créate a three-dimensional model which can then be folded out of DNA.

Nanorobots

For the past several years, Professor Ido Bachelet from Bar-Ilan University in Israel has been using this origami technique to create nanobots from DNA.

When the nanobot is in the closed position, the molecules contained within the structure will not be released and any cells outside of the nanobot will remain unaffected by the molecules it holds. It is this exclusion of delivery that makes DNA robots such a large step forward in medicine.

Movement and Computation

Once in the body the DNA nanobots can locate certain targets by searching for markers of different diseases. By programming every single nanobot with basic interaction rules, one can simply allow the emergence of complex behavior, similar to a flock of birds migrating as a single unit.

The nanobots are capable of forming complex logical circuits known as half adders. A half adder receives two input bits of information and outputs a sum of the two inputs and a remainder, also called a carry bit.

These half adders can be combined and scaled up to create complex logical circuits that could make very detailed decisions. For example, millions of these nanorobots could be loaded with an ensemble of different drugs and determine the best combination of drug treatment based on the presence or lack of certain diseases in a patient.

Looking to the Future

The standard timeline for biopharmaceutical development, or any technology used in the pharmaceutical industry, is usually a long and arduous one

Professor Bachelet’s DNA nanorobots are currently in the “preclinical development” phase. In other words, the technology has proven that it could work and has even been successful in in vitro conditions.

In the near future these DNA nanobots could be used in surgery to repair damaged tissues or in spinal cord treatment. This could revolutionize the field of medicine and change the lives of millions.

Professor Bachelet envisions a future where an annual shot containing billions of nanobots can autonomously diagnose and treat diseases using logical operations.

As Ido Bachelet said himself, “Searching for a new drug that kills cancer is like searching for a gun that kills only bad people. We don’t search for such guns. What we do is train a soldier to use that gun properly. Just think about all those drugs pulled from the market for excessive toxicity. It does not mean they were not effective. They were amazingly effective but they were guns shooting in all directions. In the hands of a well-trained soldier, or a well programed nanobot, we could hypothetically kill any disease.”