Armentrout discusses the Nanotechnology Revolution and how the market for nanotechnology products and services will reach $1 trillion by 2015. Oh, and he’s pretty pumped about the potential to benefit mankind too.

Dr. Steven Armentrout is the founder and CEO of Parabon NanoLabs (PNL), a leading nano-engineering company that produces nano-enabled products via directed molecular self-assembly.   

PNL was formed to capitalize on the commercial opportunities made possible by its proprietary nano-engineering platform, which spans the entire “concept to creation” development continuum. Using this platform, PNL designs and develops therapeutics, diagnostics and other nano-scale products using self-assembly, whereby designer macromolecules are functionalized with molecular subcomponents such as enzymes, nanoparticles or pharmaceuticals.

The development platform gives its scientists the ability to design and produce multi-functional macromolecules from simpler subcomponents, replacing the current paradigm of “molecular discovery” with that of “molecular design.” PNL is actively developing macromolecules for use in the areas of cancer therapeutics, nano-arrays for rapid readouts of DNA and nano-sensors for bioweapons defense. 

PD&D Design Daily: How will designing products at the nano-scale continue to change in the next five years?

Dr. Steven Armentrout: Nano-scale engineering is still in the formative stages, which is why the initial products tend to be stand-alone “applications,” like a nano-engineered therapeutic, which performs its function without the need to interact with other “system components.”   

As the field matures, more and more macro-scale products, like human-scale computer components, will be nano-enabled, with rich interactions between nano-scale and macro-scale components. Designing such systems will require even greater CAD capabilities and greater control over the fabrication processes, but the results will be utterly astounding.

PD&D: Describe how nanostructures have potentially limitless applications? 

Armentrout: DNA-based nanotechnology is a great example of what is sometimes referred to as a “greenfield” technology, able to be applied across many domains. The simplest way to understand the vast breadth of potential applications for these programmable nanostructures is to consider the molecular composition of the physical world. 

Then, consider having the ability to re-engineer almost any aspect of it at the atomic and molecular scale. Designer macromolecules and custom nanostructures can be used in fields ranging from therapeutics and diagnostics to detergent additives and next-generation electronics. In fact, it’s hard to think of a domain that won’t benefit from advances in nanotechnology.   

PD&D: What is (will be) the Nanotechnology Revolution?

Armentrout: Beginning with the microfabrication of transistors in the 1960s, control of matter at the micro-scale enabled the era of electronic miniaturization that ultimately led to the Information Revolution.

Today, the newly discovered ability to precisely manipulate matter at the nanoscale (1,000-times smaller than microscale - literally, the scale of individual atoms and molecules) is about to usher in an era of even greater economic impact: the Nanotechnology Revolution. 

Supporting this widely held belief, the National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates the market for nanotechnology products and services will reach $1 trillion by 2015.

PD&D: Why is it important to be able to build “designer molecules” from grid-optimized sequences of DNA?

Armentrout: Our approach relies on synthetic DNA to drive self-assembly. Although DNA is best known as a carrier of genetic information, individual strands of DNA can be synthesized to have any sequence of bases and because certain so-called “complementary” sequences of DNA are mutually attractive, strands can be “programmed” with sequences that cause them to “swim to the right spot,” with respect to one another, where they then bind to form nanostructures of virtually any geometric shape.

By attaching DNA strands to other types of molecular subcomponents, like therapeutic payloads, nanostructures can be richly functionalized to form novel macromolecules with uses across countless application domains. The ability of DNA structures to self-assemble in this manner allows designer macromolecules to be deliberately engineered and then mass-produced — feats not achievable with any other nanotechnologies at this time. In fact, DNA can be used to help other nanotechnologies, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), overcome inherent control and scalability issues that otherwise challenge their commercial viability.

“Grid-optimized sequences” refers to DNA sequences that have been computationally optimized to self-assemble into a particular nanostructure design. Over the past four years, we have developed a proprietary CAD (computer-assisted design) application, called the inSēquio™ Sequence Design Studio, that overcomes what had been the major impediment to progress in the field of DNA-based nanotechnology, namely, the computationally daunting task of calculating the precise sequences of DNA required for the self-assembly of target nanostructures. 

The absence of software in the marketplace to assist with this challenge and the desperate need for such by the founders of PNL is what first brought the team together. inSēquio gets its supercomputing power from running on a computational grid comprised of several thousand computers, hence we say that the sequences are “grid-optimized.”

PD&D: Why is Parabon beginning with products for therapeutics, diagnostics and other molecular detection systems?

Armentrout: Our technology offers immediate benefits in the form of stand-alone solutions. We possess the engineering capability to produce designer therapeutics today and it’s the area where we believe our technology can have the biggest immediate impact.   

The failure of current small molecule treatments for many common cancers is well known, particularly for lung and colon cancers. There exist many therapeutic compounds that are sufficiently cytotoxic to destroy cancer cells and they could potentially be used for treatment, but because they cannot be targeted effectively, their practical utility is limited. 

Our nanotechnology platform provides the means of creating complex delivery vehicles for such therapeutic compounds, which could render them effective. We believe these and many other practical therapeutic challenges are best addressed with precisely engineered nanosystems in which each atom contributes to the cure. 

PD&D: How does inSēquio Sequence Design Studio enhance nano-engineering?

Armentrout: inSēquio is a CAD software application, like AutoCAD^®, that was designed exclusively for assisting with the design of DNA-based nanostructures. 

Built over the past four years, inSēquio boasts a rich editing environment that allows nano-engineers to specify all aspects of a particular nanostructure design. Then, when the design step is finished, inSēquio performs deep optimization on the DNA sequences required for self-assembly of the target design.  

A single DNA strand of just 135 bases has more possible sequence arrangements than the estimated number of atoms in the universe and some nanostructures have more than 50,000 bases. Since evaluation of each candidate sequence set requires compute-intensive molecular dynamics calculations, the computational workload to discover effective sequences is vast.

That is why inSēquio was built to run on Parabon’s Frontier^® Grid Platform, which produces supercomputing power from the excess capacity of thousands of networked computers, allowing it to perform DNA sequence optimizations that are not otherwise possible at this time.  Using inSēquio, the PNL research team can rapidly move candidate nanostructure designs through the concept-to-creation product cycle, which is one of our key competitive advantages.   

PD&D: Looking at the current state of the industry, what keeps you up at night?

Armentrout: As a young company, in what amounts to a totally new market, of course there are the never-ending challenges of entrepreneurship that can keep one awake.  But, I have to say that the technology and opportunities are so strong in this case, the business challenges pale by comparison.

When I lose sleep these days, it’s from raw excitement over the opportunity before us.  Everything about this business – from the market potential to the potential to benefit mankind, not to mention the utter coolness of being able to design and build at this scale – it is so wonderfully exciting, it’s easy to lie awake at night, my mind buzzing with the possibilities. Even so, our product pipeline does not yet include next-generation nano-enabled sleep medications – but it could.