IMM's mission is to enable and conduct research on molecular systems engineering, perform safeguard design, and promote guidelines for research and development practices that will minimize risk from accidental misuse and intentional abuse.
Molecular manufacturing is a future technology that will allow us to build large objects to atomic precision, quickly and cheaply, with virtually no defects. Robotic mechanisms will position and react molecules to build systems to complex atomic specification. The theoretical capabilities and performance of these systems have been analyzed for over fifteen years, molecular machine components are being built now, and molecular manufacturing could mature within the next ten years. When it becomes available, it will enable immensely powerful computers, abundant and high quality consumer goods, and devices able to cure diseases by repairing the body at the molecular level.