Molecular Nanotechnology Has Been Successful When Properly Funded

In January, 2022, – The first molecular electronics chip was developed. This achieved a 50-year-old goal of integrating single molecules into circuits to achieve the ultimate scaling limits of Moore’s Law. Developed by Roswell Biotechnologies and a multi-disciplinary team of leading academic scientists, the chip uses single molecules as universal sensor elements in a circuit to create a programmable biosensor with real-time, single-molecule sensitivity and unlimited scalability in sensor pixel density.

The Roswell Molecular Electronics(ME) Chip™ boasts a fully miniaturized sensor, ultimately compatible, for the first time, with standard microchips, overcoming the greatest hurdles to molecular electronics’ commercialization. Designed to be broadly deployable and low-cost, the Roswell ME Chip will reach new levels of performance and miniaturization in biosensing.

The sensor architecture enables precise electronic measurement at the single-molecule level for applications that range from basic discovery and translational research to precision diagnostics, whole-genome sequencing and environmental surveillance.

Next level DNA reading – The Scalability to Deliver the $100, 1-Hour Genome and Beyond…

Roswell is working towards compact multi-Exabyte DNA data storage.

In 2008, James Tour won the Foresight Institute Feynman prize.

In 2000 (eighth Foresight institute molecular nanotechnology conference), James Tour presented.

Constructing a Computer from Molecular Components

Research efforts directed toward constructing a molecular computer will be described. Routes will be outlined from the synthesis of the basic building blocks such as wires and alligator clips, to the assembly of the entire CPU. Specific achievements include:
(1) isolation of single molecules in alkane thiolate self-assembled monolayers and addressing them with an STM probe,
(2) single molecule conductance measurements using a mechanically controllable break junction,
(3) 30 nm bundles, approximately 1000 molecules, of precisely tailored molecular structures showing negative differential resistance with peak-to-valley responses far exceeding those for solid state devices,
(4) dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) constructed from 1000 molecule units that possess 10 minute information hold times
(5) demonstration of single-molecule switching events and (6) initial assemblies of molecular CPUs.

Professor Tour is the founder and principal of NanoJtech Consultants, LLC, performing technology assessments for the prospective investor. Tour’s intellectual property has been the seed for the formation of several other companies including Weebit (silicon oxide electronic memory), Dotz (graphene quantum), Zeta Energy (batteries), NeuroCords (spinal cord repair), Xerient (treatment of pancreas cancer), LIGC Application Ltd. (laser-induced graphene), Nanorobotics (molecular nanomachines in medicine) Universal Matter Ltd. (US) and Universal Matter Inc. (Canada) (flash graphene synthesis), Roswell Biotechnologies (molecular electronic DNA sequencing) and Rust Patrol (corrosion inhibitors).

Professor Tour has over 785 research publications, over 130 granted patents and over 100 pending patents. He has an h-index = 170 with total citations over 133,000. In 2021, he won the Oesper Award from the American Chemical Society which is awarded to “outstanding chemists for lifetime significant accomplishments in the field of chemistry with long-lasting impact on the chemical sciences.” In 2020, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and in the same year was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Prize for innovations in materials chemistry with applications in medicine and nanotechnology. Based on the impact of his published work, in 2019 Tour was ranked in the top 0.004% of the 7 million scientists who have published at least 5 papers in their careers.

James M. Tour, a synthetic organic chemist, received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Syracuse University, his Ph.D. in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry from Purdue University, and postdoctoral training in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University. After spending 11 years on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, he joined the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University in 1999 where he is presently the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering. Tour’s scientific research areas include nanoelectronics, graphene electronics, silicon oxide electronics, carbon nanovectors for medical applications, green carbon research for enhanced oil recovery and environmentally friendly oil and gas extraction, graphene photovoltaics, carbon supercapacitors, lithium ion batteries, CO2 capture, water splitting to H2 and O2, water purification, carbon nanotube and graphene synthetic modifications, graphene oxide, carbon composites, hydrogen storage on nanoengineered carbon scaffolds, and synthesis of single-molecule nanomachines which includes molecular motors and nanocars. He has also developed strategies for retarding chemical terrorist attacks. For pre-college education, Tour developed the NanoKids concept for K-12 education in nanoscale science, and also Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero science packages for elementary and middle school education: SciRave that later expanded to a Stemscopes-based SciRave. The SciRave program has risen to be the #1 most widely adopted program in Texas to complement science instruction, and it is currently used by over 450 school districts and 40,000 teachers with over 1 million student downloads.

Tour’s paper on Nanocars was the most highly accessed journal article of all American Chemical Society articles in 2005, and it was listed by LiveScience as the second most influential paper in all of science in 2005. Tour has won several other national awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in Polymer Chemistry.

There was a 100 nanometer long nanocar race in 2017.

Dr. Joachim shared the 1997 Foresight Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for Experimental Work with two researchers then at IBM Research Zurich for work using scanning probe microscopes to manipulate molecules. Eight years later he won the 2005 Foresight Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for Theory for developing theoretical tools and establishing the principles for design of a wide variety of single molecule functional nanomachines.

Rice University chemist James Tour [winner of the 2008 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize for Experimental work] and his international team have won the first Nanocar Race. With an asterisk.

The Rice and University of Graz team finished first in the inaugural Nanocar Race in Toulouse, France, April 28, completing a 150-nanometer course — a thousandth of the width of a human hair — in about 1½ hours. (The race was declared over after 30 hours.)