Zack Lynch is the founder and executive director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO) and co-founder of NeuroInsights. He serves on the advisory boards of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT,Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, the InnerSpace Foundation, the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies and SocialText, a social software company. His book on how brain science is changing our world will be available July 2009. Please send newsworthy items or feedback - to Zack Lynch.
One of the more impressive talks at last year's NBIC conference was Dr. Carlo Montemagno's presentation on an actin-based nanorobotic system developed by the UCLA biomotor group.
Having tried to design nanosystems for almost a decade, he recently turned to biomimetic principles (mimicking nature) with promising results. These principles include: local communication, no central processing, fully distributed, and stupid agents that follow simple rules. See the videos of the UCLA Biomotor group.