Nanodevice design through the functional abstraction of biological macromolecules

Abstract

Biologic macromolecules are prefabricated, functional nanocomponents readily incorporated into nanodevices. Semibiologic nanodevice design typically depends on knowledge of specific biomolecules by individual biologist designers, so individual devices seldom take full advantage of available biodiversity and are poorly optimized. Available informational resources (proteomic and genomic databases) were built to reflect evolutionary relationships between organisms, molecules, and biologic systems, and are lacking in their explicit functional properties. This limits their direct utility in nanodevice design. We discuss the need, and possible structure for an information framework that captures the function of biological macromolecules to enable rational nanodevice design and optimization.