The Discovery Process Target

The start point and the end point are the same in both rational design methodology and traditional research - the discovery process starts with a customer requirement and ends with a solution to that need. However, the routes taken to get there are slightly different.

	The old ways	Rational design	The difference
Market or Customer requirements	Customer presents a problem to be solved, eg need for new soft, fireproof polymer.	Customer presents a challenge and a chance to investigate the problem-space of new polymers.	Very slight - perhaps only the difference between seeing a problem to be solved, and an opportunity to learn something new (while solving a problem).
Product design	Think about what the problem needs in terms of individual bullet points - a soft polymer, a soft polymer that is also fire resistant, a fire-resistant polymer. Select every existing solution plus a few 'intuitive extras' to act as core of test candidates.	Sit down and ponder what the problem is (need for soft, fire-resistant polymer). How has this been solved in the past? What did these solutions have in common? What conclusions can be drawn about that correlation, that could lead to a series of potential routes to explore?	Traditionally, problems were solved by being broken down into small bits. Each step was then solved in turn until an entire solution could be brought together. This may have been due to the origins of rigorous research, where scientists worked on their own, were reluctant to share data and often did not have support networks to consult. Over time, research has become more of a team effort with extensive collaboration, sharing of data and knowledge, procedures and more. This, perhaps, has allowed a greater creative synergy in fleshing out the problem and finding the best way to start finding a solution.
Exploration and experimentation	Test all candidates. Fail those that obviously do not meet requirements. Add in extra candidates for round 2 testing that are similar to those that went through round 1. Repeat.	Mine existing experimental data to find interesting polymers. Calculate QSAR properties for all of them. Select those that show potential as being soft and possibly fire-resistant. Test these. Keep those that have some success and refine the test group, introducing novel polymers based on the best features of the first generation polymers that succeeded.	Rational design tries to start with a small selection of candidates that are already as targeted to the problem as possible. If this test set has to be expanded, new candidates may well be generated in silico, by using genetic algorithms for example, rather than going back to random molecules. This means a major difference between traditional and rational experimentation is that rational design prefers to whittle down the candidate list before beginning experiments, while traditional methods prefer to start with a large candidate list, experiment and then discard candidates.
Testing candidates	Keep testing until something succeeds. The success does not have to be an exact solution to the problem, just better than anything else (your competitors will have just as hard a job to replace your solution).	Much testing can be done in silico using modeling and simulation techniques. This helps to target the real laboratory research even more towards what properties are needed in the solution/best fit candidate.	Targeted experimentation is really the name of the game here. If you start with a focused view of the problem, and generate a targeted candidate list, then every test you do subsequently ought to take you closer to a tailored solution.
Entry into market	Not a particularly targeted solution. May have taken a long time to find. Potential experimentation costs are high.	Highly targeted solution that will be hard to beat. May have taken little time or resources to find. Experimentation costs probably smaller, and shared with cost of software.	Rational design comes first in this race, uses fewer experimental resources, probably costs less and provides a more targeted solution to the original problem.

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The Discovery Process Target: The rational approach to designing nanomaterials. The traditional process, shown in light blue, results in more of a ‘hit and miss’ approach, with more products missing the exact target than compared to the rational approach.

Taken from "Toward Nanomaterials by Design: A Rational Approach for Reaping Benefits in the Short and Long Term"
By Scott Mize, President, Foresight Institute, September 2004

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