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Organic chemists make molecules,

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very complicated molecules,

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by chopping up a big molecule into small molecules

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and reverse engineering.

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And as a chemist,

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one of the things I wanted to ask my research group a couple of years ago is,

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could we make a really cool universal chemistry set?

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In essence, could we "app" chemistry?

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Now what would this mean, and how would we do it?

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Well to start to do this,

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we took a 3D printer

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and we started to print our beakers and our test tubes on one side

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and then print the molecule at the same time on the other side

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and combine them together in what we call reactionware.

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And so by printing the vessel and doing the chemistry at the same time,

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we may start to access this universal toolkit of chemistry.

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Now what could this mean?

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Well if we can embed biological and chemical networks like a search engine,

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so if you have a cell that's ill that you need to cure

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or bacteria that you want to kill,

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if you have this embedded in your device

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at the same time, and you do the chemistry,

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you may be able to make drugs in a new way.

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So how are we doing this in the lab?

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Well it requires software, it requires hardware

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and it requires chemical inks.

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And so the really cool bit is,

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the idea is that we want to have a universal set of inks

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that we put out with the printer,

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and you download the blueprint, the organic chemistry for that molecule

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and you make it in the device.

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And so you can make your molecule in the printer using this software.

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So what could this mean?

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Well, ultimately, it could mean that you could print your own medicine.

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And this is what we're doing in the lab at the moment.

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But to take baby steps to get there,

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first of all we want to look at drug design and production,

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or drug discovery and manufacturing.

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Because if we can manufacture it after we've discovered it,

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we could deploy it anywhere.

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You don't need to go to the chemist anymore.

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We can print drugs at point of need.

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We can download new diagnostics.

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Say a new super bug has emerged.

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You put it in your search engine,

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and you create the drug to treat the threat.

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So this allows you on-the-fly molecular assembly.

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But perhaps for me the core bit going into the future

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is this idea of taking your own stem cells,

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with your genes and your environment,

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and you print your own personal medicine.

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And if that doesn't seem fanciful enough,

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where do you think we're going to go?

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Well, you're going to have your own personal matter fabricator.

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Beam me up, Scotty.

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(Applause)