Dr. James Tour is a researcher and developer of nanotechnology. He is involved in cutting edge science.  They have designed Nano cars that are so small You can park 50,000 of them across the diameter of a human hair! This research is accomplished through chemistry.

Other research in graphite nano-ribbons has led to healing of spinal cords in rats.

They also have developed a nano robot that will kill unwanted cells in the body.  This is accomplished by taking the nano motors that propel the nano cars and coding them them with specific peptides. These peptides will recognize a certain type of cell and attach to it. Once they are attached the motors are turned on and they will drill through the membrane of the unwanted cell, killing it in about a minute.

This article is part of a lecture Dr. Tour did on the obstacles involved in making protein molecules in the lab.

Making Protein Molecules in the Lab

Almost all experiments to create a cell have followed a common protocol that is similar to this.

1. Purchase some chemicals, generally in high purity, from a chemical company.
2. Mix these chemicals together in a specific order, under a careful set of devised conditions in a modern laboratory.
3. The results of these experiments have been a mixture of compounds that have a resemblance to one or more of the four basic classes of chemicals needed for life: carbohydrates, nucleic acids, amino acids or lipids.
4. Many of the results of these experiments overstate the significance of this experiment. In reality all that has been accomplished is the creation of  stereochemically scrambled intermediaries, which are the building blocks for life that have been created through a modern scientific process.

When building a molecule through modern chemistry, synthetic reactions have to be stopped at a specific point in time. In addition to the molecules that the chemist wants to make, their are other types of molecules that are formed. The scientist needs to separate the molecules that are wanted from the unwanted ones. In Doctor Tour’s opinion, this doesn’t happen in nature.

You have to purify your chemicals after each step in creating these molecules. Each step leads to unwanted side reactions and if you don’t purify them you end up with “messes that can’t be worked on”. A prebiotic system does not have the ability to easily purify the structures.You have to purify after each step in the chemical process, nature would have to do that as well.

In order to create a specific molecule in chemistry, you must follow a precise order, it’s essential.  To make that molecule, you may have to go through hundreds of different steps all done in an exact order, otherwise it won’t work. In addition, the parameters of temperature, pressure, solvent, light, pH, atmospheric gases and the time between each of these steps has to be carefully controlled.  This is how you build a complex molecular structure.

The mass transfer problem is the biggest problem of all. For example you may start your experiment with a kilogram of material. Once you’ve gone through about four steps you may only have 5 mgs or relevant material. But you need more than 5 mgs, so what are you do? You go back and you make another kilogram or more of the original material and you bring it on through. But what does nature do if it runs out material after billion years. It would somehow have to make more through a random process.

Characterization refers to the process where a material’s structure and properties are probed and measured. A chemist needs to stop and characterize at each step or he doesn’t know what he has. So the chemist must characterize, or the molecules that are being created will become contaminated.

Time, although claimed to be the great savior of abiogenesis, can actually be the enemy. For example carbohydrates are kinetic products. In a short period of time they will caramelize, or go through decomposition. They won’t wait around for millions of years waiting for the next step to happen in the evolutionary process.

When building molecular systems, constant redesigns are needed.  If a molecule was not quite right to support a biological process, you can’t just remove the part of the molecule that is causing the problem, you have to rebuild the molecule from scratch.  If there is a problem with the molecule how would natural selection know it was wrong?

Scientific Proof

In science to prove your findings you need to create a document that is called a characterization. A characterization has the detailed instructions on how the scientist got their results. If a characterization is written properly, another scientist can follow the “recipe” and get the exact same results.

Doctor Tour showed parts of the characterization involving the nano cars. He shows the extremely detailed notes that are required at each step in the process in order to create the nano cars. The entire characterization for the nano car is 281 pages. Many of these steps require exact heat for exact periods of time, in an exact order much like discussed earlier. Each of these steps is essential or the cars won’t work. The same is true in cellular genesis.

Dr Tour stated that no one who has ever claimed to have created a cell has presented a characterization, so in reality, there is no scientific proof.