Tag Archives: Keithley

Keithly’s ‘How Nanotechnology Could Reengineer Us’ infographic*

There’s a rather striking infographic from Keithley, a Tektronix company, making the rounds,

[downloaded from http://www.keithley.com/knowledgecenter/How-Nanotechnology-Could-Reengineer-Us]

[downloaded from http://www.keithley.com/knowledgecenter/How-Nanotechnology-Could-Reengineer-Us]

Difficult to see here, I encourage the curious to check it out here on the company’s website and do keep in mind that this represents aspirational research. Assuming any number of technical difficulties can be surmounted, we may one day be able to repair brains, regrow teeth, etc.

The commentary on Reddit about this infographic is illuminating. From the How Nanotechnology Could Reengineer Us comments  page in Futurology on the Reddit.com website,

Benchtop nano scientist (phd student) here. The choice of r/Futurology [section for this infographic] is a generous one — if there were an r/post-future-ology it might be a more accurate estimate. It is going to take a long, long time to translate “nanotechnology” — however you want to define it — into these medical advances. …

I’m in a nanomolecular engineering class right now, granted that it’s an undergraduate course I can say that the life regeneration aspect is too far in the future. The closest medical implementation I have seen I better targeted drug delivery and even that was all theoretical. And in the classes its just a whole bunch of quantum physics and chemistry and basic engineering tools. Full on regeneration I assume will be at least 20 years. Professors working in the field are even skeptical of the stuff above. Sure they’ll write the stuff in their grants but in reality it’s really far off.

I don’t know if you know much about pur current drug delivery mechanisms by they not as sophisticated as we think they don’t penetrate the cell and certainly have no effect on the DNA. The research I read was targeting the DNA penetrating the cell using a nanomolecular ligands that coated specific silencing RNA. Look up the research it is conducted by Suzie Pun.

I interviewed with Pun at UW when applying for BME PhD programs. Very cool work. I’m going somewhere else for grad school but still working on targeted siRNA delivery.

It has huge potential, but will take quite a long time to make it through the clinic and gain FDA approval.

Getting back to the infographic, I was quite happy to see a list of sources at the bottom. It’s reassuring to see what research they examined before producing their infographic. Too many people and institutions don’t* share the sources for their information.

Here’s some information about Tektronix, Keithley’s parent company, (from the its Wikipedia entry; Note: Links have been removed),

Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Danaher Corporation acquired Tektronix as a subsidiary.[2]

Here’s more from the About Keithley page,

Keithley, a Tektronix company, designs, develops, manufactures, and markets advanced electrical test instruments and systems for the specialized needs of electronics manufacturers in high-performance production testing, process monitoring, product development, and research.

Keithley has approximately 500 products that are used to source, measure, connect, control, or communicate direct current (DC) or pulsed electrical signals. Product offerings include integrated systems along with instruments and personal computer (PC) plug-in boards that can be used as system components or stand-alone solutions. Keithley customers include scientists and engineers in the worldwide electronics industry involved with advanced materials research, semiconductor device development and fabrication, and the production of end products such as portable wireless devices.

This infographic seems like an interesting public relations ploy as it has certainly gotten the company some attention.

* ‘don’t’ added to sentence on Sept. 29, 2014.

* ‘inforgraphic’ changed to ‘infographic’ on April 23, 2015.