Science on Hla: ’21th Century Will Be Dedicated to Much Smaller Machines’

Dr. Saw-Wai Hla

Science magazine writes about work by a team of scientists led by OHIO Professor of Physics Dr. Saw-Wai Hla in a story headlined “A 2 nm sized nanomachine able to spin and transfer its rotational energy.”

With the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this year, it could be argued that the greatest science of the 20th Century was about big machines that could travel the universe. The rise of nanotechnology is suggesting that the 21th Century will be dedicated to much smaller machines that can travel inside the smallest spaces including human cells. Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan, in partnership with research teams in the University Paul Sabatier (France) and Prof. Saw-Wai Hla in Ohio University (USA), report in Nature Communications the latest nanomachine, a propeller that can rotate at will in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions and transfer this motion to another molecule like gears.

Read more in Science Magazine.

Also see Hla Develops Robust Molecular Propeller that Enables Unidirectional Rotations.