Robert A. Freitas Jr. ’74 studies and works in the area of medical nanorobotics—a very long-horizon technology (~20 years) that is still in its infancy and still mostly theoretical. In an article published in the January 2009 issue of Life Extension magazine, Freitas, referring to nanotechnology, said, "A revolution in medical technology looms large on the horizon."

Freitas, author of the first book ever published on nanomedicine (in 1999), is poised to be part of this revolution because of his pioneering work in the field. He was awarded the 2009 Feynman Prize for Theory awarded by The Foresight Institute, a nanotechnology education and public policy think tank based in Palo Alto, Calif. The prize recognizes Freitas’ pioneering theoretical work in mechanosynthesis in which he proposed specific molecular tools and analyzed them using ab initio quantum chemistry to validate their ability to build complex molecular structures. This prize also recognizes his previous work in systems design of molecular machines, including replicating molecular manufacturing systems, which may eventually make large atomically precise products economically, and the design of medical nanodevices, which may eventually revolutionize medicine.

Established in 1993 in honor of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, two $5,000 prizes are awarded in two categories, theory and experiment, to recognize researchers whose recent work has most advanced the field toward the achievement of Feynman’s vision for nanotechnology: molecular manufacturing, the construction of atomically-precise products through the use of molecular machine systems.

“What once seemed like a distant vision when it was first outlined by Feynman in 1959 — a new manufacturing technology able to arrange the very atoms that are the fundamental building blocks of matter — has come a step closer to reality,” said J. Storrs Hall, president of Foresight Institute. “This is no small thing, for all manufactured products are made from atoms — and if we can better control how those atoms are arranged we can make fundamentally better products—those that are remarkably light, strong, smart, green and cheap. Molecular manufacturing will dwarf the Industrial Revolution,” Hall said.

Freitas is senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, Calif., and was a research scientist at Zyvex Corporation (Richardson, Texas), the first molecular nanotechnology company, during 2000-2004. He is the author of Nanomedicine, the first book-length technical discussion of the potential medical applications of molecular nanotechnology and medical nanorobotics. He also co-authored Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines (Landes Bioscience, 2004).