Thinking Small Will Lead You to Big Profits

We often take technological change for granted. Many of us would not be here to read this if it weren’t for new medical breakthroughs. As a cancer survivor, I know I wouldn’t.

We can see the change in other fields as well. Computing power and software that were once only the musings of science fiction writers are now commodities. Intel founder Gordon Moore first described this technological ramping-up back in the 1960s.

Moore noticed an industry wide trend in semiconductor fabrication. Observing a rate of transistor density in integrated circuits that was doubling every 24 months, he also noted that the cost per transistor was halving as well. Extrapolating upon this trend, Moore predicted it would continue well into the future. Now famously known as “Moore’s Law,” it has proven prophetic.

I’d like to point out, however, that the principle of technological improvement through increasing smallness extends to a much larger field than semiconductors. Tininess is touching on many industries.

We are witnessing a growing ability to precisely manipulate and assemble materials at a scale measured in nanometers. As you know, a nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and comes from the Greek root for “dwarf.”

Technology that operates at this scale is called nanotechnology. Increasingly, it is blurring the lines between different technological and scientific fields. Instead of fumbling with matter at the macro scale, we are developing the ability to build things at the molecular level. This was the subject of Nobel laureate Richard Feynman’s famous 1959 talk There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. We are starting to do many of the things Feynman, who is considered the father of nanotechnology, dreamed of.

In doing so, nanotechnology is helping us to solve problems and improve life. In fact, our ability to manipulate matter at the most basic level is already changing the way we do nearly everything. New breakthroughs in medicine, energy and electronics will be driven because of the nanotechnology revolution.

The importance of this change to civilization is like the discovery of fire or metallurgy. Future historians will point to the nanotech shift taking place sometime in the late 20th/early 21st centuries. Visionary investors that cash in on this shift will turn tiny investments into huge fortunes.

New products will be radically different from anything we have yet seen. This is true even if they are manufactured out of otherwise common elements. In nature, for example, we see how substances have very different physical properties depending on how the atoms are organized.

Eventually, physical limits to how small we can build will be reached. In the future, instead of removing material, computer components will be grown from individual molecules. This will not only extend Moore’s Law for some time to come, but it will create completely new kinds of computers. At these smaller scales, quantum effects become more important. Computers that harness these quantum effects will be far more powerful than anything available today.

Biotechnology, by the way, has been a nanotechnology in practice long before it became a buzzword. Few areas are feeling the impact of nanotechnology right now more than medicine. The discovery of the DNA molecule in the 1950s and the development of ways to read and manipulate it have set the stage for huge advances.

Nanotechnology is a natural avenue for medical advancement, since our bodies are built out of nanomachines-cells. Improved instruments and models for understanding how these biological nanomachines work have opened new avenues for treating disease.

This means that the human cell is no longer a black box. We not only know far more about what is going on inside cells, we can also control what they do. Nanotechnology is unlocking the secrets of cellular biology and turning the cell into a cornucopia. This is literally true when it comes to agricultural sciences.

The increased knowledge of how cells function at the molecular level allows us to create computer simulations about how they work. This greatly speeds up drug discovery compared to traditional laboratory techniques. Rather than randomly testing existing compounds, custom molecules are being discovered that selectively target only the parts of the cell that we want to modify to cure disease.

Molecular nanotechnology is designing carrier molecules that can transport therapeutic drugs directly into cells. There, they provide the greatest benefit while minimizing side effects. Researchers are even developing the ability to control how genes are expressed in individual cells. This creates opportunities for curing the majority of genetically caused human diseases.

Also developing are therapies that can create new young cells out of adult stem cells. These cells can be used to regenerate damaged tissue. Additionally, nanotechnology raises the possibility of reversing the cellular aging process by repairing molecular damage inside the cells themselves.

Pathological nanomachines — viruses — are being targeted as well. Some of the worst ones that have eluded us for decades will be curable. In so doing, fantastic investment opportunities on these breakthrough medical technologies are being created.