It seems like every week scientists invent new nanomachines.  Nanomachines, tiny machines built on the atomic scale, help to cure disease through such functions as cancer detection, cancer destruction, and providing a biological power backup to batteries in pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). 

While dozens of useful nanodevices have been developed, one of the biggest challenges remains that various nanodevices cannot be controlled in mass and control of individual devices remains a rigorous process.  Current control of nanodevices is obviously not applicable to in-vivo (in the living human body), scenarios -- nanodevices remain unable to activate on their own, and thus are essentially useless without a means of remote control.

Researchers with the International Center for Young Scientists in Tsukuba, Japan have taken the first step towards overcoming this obstacle.  They have invented what has been dubbed a "nano-brain".  The research is presented in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The tiny chemical brain is only 2 nm across.  It is composed of 17 molecules of duroquinone, a cyclic (ring) molecule with 4 methyl groups and two keto-groups attached.    Sixteen of the molecules are attached by hydrogen bonds to a single central molecule.  By changing the orientation of the methyl groups attached, through electron scanning tunneling microscopy or other means, researchers are able to remotely control the central molecule, which switches the states of the surrounding 16 molecules.  Each of the attached molecules has four different settings, so a total of 4¹⁶ combinations are possible, leading to about four billion unique possible outcomes.

The design of the structure, according to the team, was inspired by human glial cells used for communication inside the brain.  Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay, who helped lead the study, explains what a breakthrough the device is.  He states, "If [in the future] you want to remotely operate on a tumor you might want to send some molecular machines there.  But you cannot just put them into the blood and [expect them] to go to the right place.  That kind of device simply did not exist; this is the first time we have created a nano-brain."

The researchers envision the nanobrain controlling swarms of useful nanorobots to kill viruses and cancer cells.  As a proof of concept, researchers attached 8 different nanodevices developed by outside research to the outer molecules.  One of the device was "the world's smallest elevator", a 2.5 nm platform that can be raised and lowered on command.  When a single instruction was applied to the central molecule using the scanning electron microscope, all eight devices responded.  Dr. Bandyopadhyay states, "We have clear cut evidence that we can control those machines."

The one-to-many control structure of the molecular brain could also lead to computing breakthroughs.  A computer utilizing such a device in its CPU could simultaneously process 16 different operations.  Most current CPU architectures can only process one instruction at a time, albeit millions or billions of times per second.   The researchers are also exploring this possibility and say they have developed machines capable of 256 or even 1024 simultaneous operations.

The main impediment to developing such nano-powered supercomputers is the equipment needed to activate the molecules.  Professor Andrew Adamatzky of the University of the West England (UWE) explains, "As with other implementations of unconventional computers the application is very limited, because they operate [it] using scanning tunnel microscopy.  [But] I am sure with time such molecular CPUs can be integrated in molecular robots, so they will simply interact with other molecular parts autonomously."

While you might not see the chemical nano-brain in the next round of Intel processors, it remains a promising breakthrough in nanotechnology, that hopefully brings us one step closer to curing disease through microscopic helpers.