The group made a small photosynthetic cell by installing the protein, bacteriorhodopsin, into liposomes. The group has been able to run one motor continuously with such a cell by exposing a 350 by 350 nm collecting area to 12-hour cycles of light and dark, he said. This discovery opens the possibility of controlling the motor by turning it on and off as needed, rather than simply having it run continuously in the presence of ATP until the energy source depletes. Zettl, whose talk at the conference followed Montemagno's, suggested that biological motors would be impractical in areas of high temperatures or ultrahigh vacuums, for instance. You don't have it covered in horsehide and fueled by wood.
Synthetic materials work a lot better.
For him, the benefit of exploring the biological side of the very small was what it could show engineers about the assembly of nanodevices. Ultimately, he thought nanodevices would be fabricated from synthetic materials able to withstand high frequencies, high temperatures, and high vacuums. Zettl began by addressing the considerations necessary for working with nanotubes. It is their predicted properties that are most astonishing, he said. The single wall tube, for instance, might typically be a nanometer in diameter and many micrometers long.