The scientists are trying to build a machine that can synthesize any organic compound. It could transform chemistry. Nature” has featured at the progress of some of these groups who are working on robo-chemist and the obstacles that stand between them and their goal of building chemical synthesis machines. When such a machine will be presented which with a chemical structure could figure out how to synthesize it and then carry out the steps, it will revolutionize the chemistry.
The dream robo-chemist must combine three skills to design and synthesise organic molecules:
1. Access databases of chemical reactions - In academia programs such as Reaxys or SciFinder are utilised.
2. Design a feasible synthetic route by feeding the database knowledge into an algorithm. Human chemists, on the other hand, employ a method known as 'retrosynthetic analysis' that consists of working backwards from the target molecule to simpler precursors.
3. Synthesise the molecule using the devised synthetic route using reagents in a “robo-reactor”. Compare this to the old-fashioned chemist wearing a lab coat and specs!
In another study a new robotic system at Georgia Tech's Center for Chemical evolution could soon let scientists better simulate and analyze the chemical reactions of early earth on the surface of real rocks to further test this theory. A new robotic system could soon let scientists better simulate and analyze the chemical reactions of early earth on the surface of real rocks to further test the theory that catalytic minerals on a meteorite's surface could have jump-started life's first chemical reactions. In a proof-of-concept study, scientists selected a region for analysis on round or irregularly-shaped objects using a 3-D camera on a robotic arm, which mapped the 3-dimentional coordinates of the sample's surface. The scientists programmed the robotic arm to poke the sample with an acupuncture needle. The needle collected a small amount of material that the robot deposited in a nearby mass spectrometer, which is a powerful tool for determining a substance's chemical composition. In another study in Prague, a swarm of tens of millions of robots is being prepared, to be set loose en masse. It is only fitting that here, in the town where the word robot was coined by author Karel Capek, the next generation of robotics should be envisioned. But these won't be typical robots with gears and motors; they will instead be made of carefully designed chemical shells-within-shells, with receptors on their surface. Instead of software and processors to guide them, their instructions will be written into the chemistry of their constituent parts. They are chemical robots, or as the 1.6m euro project's title has it, chobots. Earlier this year, Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry got a new suite of robotic synthesis tools called the Overture and the Symphony X (pictured above), automated chemical synthesizers that assemble custom molecular structures called peptoids.
Chemical robotics
Chemical robotics would be a totally new research field with a new notion including the design of autonomously moving objects (artificial cells) and using them to reach special target location by an artificial tactic motion and perform efficient drug delivery or control chemical reaction via release of chemical species from the artificial cell. However, this terminology can be found in the literature with different notion. using such chemical robots is highly speculative and much more research is needed to extend it to any in-vivo or in-vitro biological applications. In the macroscale, the volume of an object is large compared to its surface area (relative surface area is low), and this involves that properties related to the volume of the object will determine its behavior.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk, nature.com, fiercebiotechit.com, novasecta.com, Cent. Eur. J. Med. 8(4) 2013 377-382