project basel biotechnology corridor

Opportunities of biomolecular electronics and hybrid devices, as well as the relatively new fields in biocomputing:

The Army has become increasingly dependent on computers and electronics to achieve high levels of situational awareness, to implement command and control networks, and to support combat systems on the battlefield. In the future, many computing and electronic devices will consist of biologically derived or inspired materials that will increase their usefulness for Army applications.

One problem in discussing research in these areas is the lack of common nomenclature. Molecular electronics is an interdisciplinary field at the interface between chemistry, electrical engineering, optical engineering, and nanoscience. Molecular electronics is defined as the encoding, manipulation, and retrieval of information at a molecular or macromolecular level. These functions are currently performed via lithographic manipulation of bulk materials to generate integrated circuits. Molecular electronics (which includes both biological and nonbiological molecules) greatly miniaturizes computer circuitry and provides promising new methodologies for high-speed signal processing and communication, volumetric data storage, novel associative and neural networks, and linear and nonlinear devices and memories.

Biomolecular electronics (also called bioelectronics), a subfield of molecular electronics, involves the investigation of native, as well as modified, biological molecules (e.g., chromophores, proteins, DNA), rather than organic molecules synthesized in the laboratory. Because natural selection processes have solved problems similar to those that must be solved in harnessing organic compounds, and because self-assembly and genetic engineering provide sophisticated control and manipulation of large molecules, biomolecular electronics is a very promising field.

Source text: The National Academies Press