"This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry," IBM research manager Chandrasekhar  'Spike' Narayan said in an interview with Reuters. "Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes," he said.

The research was a joint undertaking by scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology. Right now, the tinier the chip, the more expensive the equipment. Narayan said that if the DNA origami process scales to production-level, manufacturers could trade hundreds of millions of dollars in complex tools for less than a million dollars of polymers, DNA solutions, and heating implements.

"The savings across many fronts could add up significantly," he said. But the new processes are at least 10 years out. Narayan said that while the DNA origami could allow chipmakers to build frameworks that are far smaller than possible with conventional tools, the technique still needs years of experimentation and testing.

Actually bacteria have been assisting as tools to handle DNA when it was discovered that a type of bacterial enzyme was found to have the ability to cut DNA in a test tube. These restriction endonucleases, named because they cut double stranded DNA at restricted sites, were discovered as a natural part of the bacterial machinery. Restriction endonucleases provided biologists with a 'scissor' tool to study and manipulate DNA, enabling the generation of consistently sized DNA fragments now used for a wide range of applications, including cloning, Southern hybridization analysis, DNA sequencing and global gene expression analysis (SAGE).

A complimentary use of viruses progresses with bacteriophage  toolkit guru, Angela Belcher, professor of material science at MIT. Collaborating with Yet-Ming Chiang and Paula Hammond work on building battery electrodes etching columns four micrometers wide and a few micrometers tall onto a silicon-based surface to effectively create a stamp. They then deposited alternating layers of two different polymers, which served as the solid electrolyte and battery separator, on top of these columns.

The virus, they use, called M13, (right)  has been used in earlier self-assembly studies The virus  made of proteins, can be genetically modified to react with particular substances. In this case, it generated structured arrays of cobalt oxide nanowires on top of the solid electrolyte. Finally, the assembled electrodes were flipped over and pressed onto thin bands of platinum, which were joined to a copper contact in order to collect current from the device.

Advantages of virus assembly include functioning at room temperature and precise control over the size and spacing of nanomaterials, leading to uniform and easily reproducible devices.

Looks like bio approaches may ultimately provide a host of material handling solutions.