Dr. Charalampos “Harris” Makatsoris

The Nanowerk News article Building tomorrow’s nanofactory said

UK scientists have been granted £2.5 million (approx. $5 million) to invent a nanomachine that can build materials molecule by molecule.
 
Such a robot doesn’t — and may never — exist, though it has been imagined for over half a century. But this autumn, researchers across the UK are starting work towards it, following the funding of three research projects by the Engineering and physical sciences research council.
 
“If it works, it will redefine nanotechnology as it should have been,” said Lee Cronin, an inorganic chemist at the University of Glasgow — referring to concepts promoted in the 1980s by US engineer Eric Drexler, who suggested that nanotechnology would create tiny machines dubbed “assemblers” that could drag atoms and molecules around to make copies of themselves, or other useful devices.
 
In a related project led by Harris Makatsoris at Brunel University, computer scientists and chemists are hoping to develop a computer language that could instruct the putative nano-assembler to work without human intervention.

Charalampos “Harris” Makatsoris, CEng, MIMechE, PhD, DIC, BEng(Hons), ACGI is Lecturer in Manufacturing and Engineering Systems, Imperial College Honorary Research Fellow, and member of The Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Optimization Modeling Applications (CARISMA), Head of AMEE Research, School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University. He researches agent-based computing and its application in modeling, simulation and optimization of complex systems and their interactions data driven modeling responsive and sustainable production and supply chain modeling and optimization, RFID systems and applications grid computing in manufacturing, and supply chain management.
 
Harris is a Chartered Engineer registered with the Engineering Council (UK) and a Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He earned a first degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London. He earned a PhD in Computer Aided Systems Engineering from the Mechanical Engineering department of Imperial College. Following completion of his PhD, he worked as a post doctoral Research Associate for three years in the same department with Prof. Colin Besant. During that time he has been the technical manager in a UK-driven £6m R&D project. The project related to the development of a pioneering distributed planning, optimization, and demand lifecycle control system for semiconductor manufacturing supply networks. The project involved a number of industrial partners who partly funded the project. In that project he led the design and implementation team and was also responsible for liaising with the industrial partners and for training end users.
 
He has nine years overall work experience in academic R&D and also in commercial software product development in the area of manufacturing and supply chain optimization, planning and control. He has cofounded two specialist university spin outs. The earlier one was in Germany. The other is an Imperial College spin out company, for which he led development of the company’s product; a closed loop manufacturing and supply chain control software system involving RFID sensor technology. He has published a number of papers in the field and also the book Evolution of Supply Chain Management: Symbiosis of Adaptive Value Networks and ICT.
 
Harris coauthored Addressing the planning and control gaps in semiconductor virtual enterprises, Design of a demand-driven collaborative supply-chain planning and fulfillment system for distributed enterprises, Supply chain modeling using simulation, Design and implementation of an e-Procurement system, The metamorphosis to dynamic trading networks and virtual corporations, and Design of a distributed order promising system and environment for a globally dispersed supply chain.