The benefits of research

I'm in the process of updating some case studies that the Institute has been asked to do for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on the (usually unintended) benefits of pure research, in this case cancer treatments and DNA.

One of the best thinsg about doing this is being able to find out a bit about some quite impressive research. If you'll forgive the cliche, here one really does learn something new every day...

One instance is this work by Oxford's Jonathan Bath and Andrew Turberfield on DNA Nanomachines (it's a year old, but I'd not seen it before):

"We are learning to build synthetic molecular machinery from DNA. This research is inspired by biological systems in which individual molecules act, singly and in concert, as specialized machines: our ambition is to create new technologies to perform tasks that are currently beyond our reach. DNA nanomachines are made by self-assembly, using techniques that rely on the sequence-specific interactions that bind complementary oligonucleotides together in a double helix. They can be activated by interactions with specifi c signalling molecules or by changes in their environment. Devices that change state in response to an external trigger might be used for molecular sensing, intelligent
drug delivery or programmable chemical synthesis. Biological molecular motors that carry cargoes within cells have inspired the construction of rudimentary DNA walkers that run along sef-assembled tracks. It has even proved possible to create DNA motors that move autonomously, obtaining energy by catalysing the reaction of DNA or RNA fuels."

If that's not a clear case for getting more government money for reseach, I don't know what is. (Though I suspect Prince Charles may something to say about it, having spoken out against  both nanotechnology and genetic tinkering.)