Several significant advances in the development of molecular computing have occurred in the last five years, with Amedeo Tech seemingly leading the way.

Amedeo is the oldest company in the race. Henry Pierce, 34, the chemist who founded the company a year after leaving Stanford, has been granted numerous patents in the areas of molecular circuitry and the creation of molecular memory and logic gates -the basic component of computing.

Bronson said he hopes to now level the playing field with the funding from Tagawa.

"I think it will be a long and interesting race but we're going to be there at the finish line," he said. "With this deal, I guarantee it."

The move to a significant source of financial support -a "whale" in the parlance of the emerging-technologies investment arena -is becoming favored by the smaller companies. Bronson's move follows Midas Molecular, which secured $16 million in funding from a Canadian investor earlier this year.

"There is no two ways about it, you need the money to be competitive," Bronson said.

"The basic tools of this science are expensive. To outfit a lab costs more than a million before you even get to the research."

Amedeo's Pierce did not return calls but sources in the industry indicated his company is also seeking a significant investor.

"Everybody is out hunting whales," said Daniel F. Daly, a partner in Daly amp; Mills, a Florida-based investment firm that has monitored the emergence of nanotechnology.

"Money from the hundred-thousand-dollar investor gets eaten up too quickly, so everybody's into one-stop shopping -finding the one investor who will see a project all the way through."

Pierce closed the file, the newspaper clip inside it. Little in the story was new to him but he was intrigued by the first quote from Bronson mentioning molecular diagnostics. He wondered if Bronson was toeing the industry line, talking up the sexier side of the science, or whether he knew something about Proteus. Was he talking directly to Pierce?