Mark Bunger
The article The next big bang: Man meets machine said
In science-fiction fantasies, the melding of organic matter and digital technology usually takes human form, from Steve Austin’s six-million-dollar bionics to the replicants running amok in “Blade Runner” to the Terminator.
Yet research on multiple fronts in digital technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology may, over the next half century, alter the way we think about computers and information, and our relationship to them. With these changes, bionic body parts won’t seem so far-fetched as we increasingly develop ways to integrate high-tech materials into our mortal flesh.
And the reverse is true as well. Researchers are now looking to biological materials such as bacteria, viruses, proteins and DNA to replace mechanical parts in computers. And as the age of genetic engineering matures, scientists are already borrowing techniques from software developers to build libraries of genetic information.
All of these overlapping strands of scientific inquiry are known colloquially as “BANG”, which stands for bits, atoms, neurons and genes. “All these things are converging because biology, nanotech and organic chemistry are running together”, says Mark Bunger, an analyst with Lux Research. “The boundaries are really getting sketchy.”
Mark Bunger is a Senior Analyst at Lux Research based in the firm’s
San
Francisco office.
Lux Research is the world’s premier research and
advisory firm focusing on the business and economic impact of
nanotechnology.
Mark joined Lux Research with 14 years of business
strategy experience,
both as a management consultant and technology analyst. Most recently, he
was a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, where he studied and
advised clients in manufacturing industries including automotive and
aerospace. Prior to that, he was an International Engagement Manager at
European consultancy
Icon Medialab, as well as the Managing Director of
Icon Medialab’s U.S. office. The first six years of his career were
spent at
Accenture in the U.S., U.K., and Scandinavia, where he was a
consultant focusing on a variety of industries and technologies. Mark and
his work have figured in leading business journals and other media
outlets in the U.S. and Europe, including CNN, CNBC, The Wall Street
Journal, the Financial Times, and other regional and trade publications.
He is a coinventor on three patents (one pending), and is the
cofounder of the leading online promotional currency company,
SoftCoin,
which manages multimillion-dollar campaigns for clients such as Kodak,
Proctor & Gamble, Frito-Lay, and Nokia. He has served as Chairman and
Vice-Chair of the
Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce on the regional
and national level, respectively.
His education includes International Marketing at Märdalen
Polytechnic
in Sweden, and Market Research at the
University of Texas in the U.S. In
addition, he studied biochemistry through the
University of California
at Berkeley’s extension program, and currently assists part-time in a
neural stem cell lab in the
UCSF Department of Neurology. Mark and his
family split the year living in California and Sweden. He speaks
English,
Swedish, and German, and is conversant in French, Spanish, and other
European languages.
Read his LinkedIn profile.