The impact of MEMS and NEMS on biotechnology in the 21st century

The combination of natural polymers such as proteins and nucleic acids with MEMS and NEMS promises the advent of a totally new class of devices such as sensors and actuators with applications in diagnostics, responsive drug delivery, biocompatibility, self-assembly etc. This combination has become possible as today both top-down traditional manufacturing (e.g., MEMS and NEMS) and novel bottom-up manufacturing can realize components overlapping in size. Examples to illustrate the tremendous potential of merging top-down and bottom-up manufacturing techniques will be presented. These examples are called from the fields of molecular diagnostics, responsive drug delivery systems, protein and DNA structural elements and sensors and actuators and molecular self-assembly.