Molecular Machines and Nanomachines

Dear Colleagues,

Nanotechnology, and particularly research into nanomachines and molecular machines, represents an exciting area of translational research. It is a very hot topic.

Nanomachines are mechanical or electromechanical devices of nanometer size, and are largely in “research-and-development phase”. Current speculation has high hopes for the use of nanomachines in medical technology: whether to supply lost function to the immune system in detecting pathogens or as a smart surveillance system to detect toxic chemicals in our bodies or in our environment.

Molecular machines are devices within our cells that drive essential biological processes, with the component parts of these machines each contributing a partial function or structural element to the overall machine. The multiple components act together to enable a cellular function. Good examples include bacterial flagella, the RNA polymerase, and various protein transport machines that selectively transfer protein molecules across biological membranes. A current innovation in nanotechnology concerns the design and manufacture of synthetic molecular machines, which may or may not have a biological machine as inspiration.

The distinction between nanomachines and molecular machines is not always clear and our treatment of the “two” topics in this single volume is aimed at illuminating the complementary nature of these fields of research.

Dr. Michelle Critchley
Prof. Dr. Trevor Lithgow
Prof. Dr.Steven Langford
Guest Editors

• nanomachine
• molecular machine
• nanotechnology
• molecular motors
• nanobots

• Molecular Machines and Nanomachines in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (5 articles)