Ido Bachelet, Ph.D.

Ido Bachelet, Ph.D.

Professor, Faculty of Life Sciences and Nano Center

Bar-Ilan University

Speech Title:

Medical nanorobots that obey Asimov's laws

Abstract:

The field of robotics has recently entered into the nanometer and molecular scales. The technical challenges associated with the design and fabrication of molecular robots are being gradually tackled; however, it is not clear whether and how the general paradigms and concepts of robotics can be translated into this scale as well. We develop strategies to encode in molecules the three laws of robotics, devised and introduced by Isaac Asimov during the early 20th century, creating nanorobots that are aware of the damage they cause and can outsmart tumor resistance. This study demonstrates that abstract paradigms can be implemented in molecules, and highlights the importance of thinking about robots in a new way that is independent of the robot’s size, the materials of which it is built, and the physical mechanisms that drive its actions and intelligence.

Bio:

Dr. Ido Bachelet is a member of the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Nano Center at Bar-Ilan University. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology and drug design at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, did his first post-doctoral research in mechanical engineering at M.I.T., and a second post-doctoral research in synthetic biology at the Wyss Institute for Bio-inspired Engineering at Harvard University, where his research started the field of medical nanorobotics. Dr. Bachelet leads the multidisciplinary lab of biological design at BIU, developing and studying diverse technologies including medical nanorobotics, unconventional computing, programmable objects, and human-machine interfaces. He started several companies in the U.S. and Israel in the fields of infectious diseases and computer vision, and his research is supported by grants from the European Research Council, Israeli Chief Scientist and other U.S. and European foundations. He is also a pianist, and composes music where living cells and molecules take active parts. His CD of music for piano and microscope is coming soon.