Protein engineering is a technology of molecular machines - of molecular machines that are part of replicators - and so it comes from an area that already raises some of the issues that nanotechnology will raise.

in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System. '" Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond but in December 2003 Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate.

His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and publiK. Eric Drexlerd as the book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992) which received the Association of American PubliK. Eric Drexlerrs award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.