Ordered one way, atoms make up homes and fresh air, and ordered another way, they make up ash and smoke. Coal and diamonds, cancer and healthy tissue are made out of the variations of atoms too and variations in the ordering of atoms turn precious in cheap, or sick in healthy.
Considering a single atom as a building block nanotechnology seek practical ways to create new materials with specified characteristics. Many companies already know how to assemble atoms and molecules in certain way.
In the future, any molecule will be assembled like a child’s constructor. To achieve it, it is planned to use nano-robots (nanobots). In fact, any chemically stable structure that can be described is possible to be built. Since the nanobots will be programmed for the construction of any structure (in particular, for the construction of other nanobots), they will become very cheap. Working in large groups, nanobots will be able to create any objects with low-cost and high accuracy.
In medicine, the problem nanotechnology application is in change of the cell structure at the molecular level, i.e. to “molecular surgery” with the help of nano-robots. In medicine is expected the creation of molecular robots-doctors, who can “live” inside the human body, preventing or eliminating all arising damage. Nanobots will be able to repair cells by manipulating individual atoms and molecules. Scientists forecast the creation of robots-doctors in the first half of XXI century.
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In Tokyo’s Waseda University created the world’s thinnest band-aid, a nanometers-thick adhesive bandage sheet designed for surgical use. With nano band-aid you can pull off a wound, even on internal organs. Scientists have successfully used it healing a wound in the lungs of a dog. One week after attaching the plaster, scientists found the dog’s wound had healed.
Named “Nano Bansoko” (nano band-aid), the new bandage is between from several tens of nanometers to 1,500 nanometers thick (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). It is more than 1,000 times thinner than a plastic wrap. One side of nano band-aid is highly adhesive and can stick to tissues around wounds, while the other side shows very little tissue adhesion. The bandage, which breaks down naturally after healing, is made from chitosan (a substance derived from chitin found in crab shells) and alginate sodium (produced in kelp slime).
“We will now conduct a detailed safety evaluation in order to put the bandage into practical use in three years,” said professor Shinji Takeoka, who also announced plans to study the use of the bandage on other organs like intestines, as well as in scar prevention on sutured wounds after breast cancer surgery.
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Ever since the invention of nanotechnology, scientists tried to foresee its medical potential. By operating on such a small scale, tiny nano-robots could potentially enter the human body, making for better diagnoses, rushing through the bloodstream delivering medicine, or even performing complex operations too difficult for human hands.
“Nanorobotics can play a major role in medical applications, especially for target interventions into the human body through the vascular network,” says Sylvain Martel, director of the nanorobotics laboratory at École Polytechnique de Montréal. ” I believe that nanorobotics could bring new methods and tools to these particular applications.”
While medical molecular machines are not likely to appear soon, there are a great amount of research going into the development of nanoscale robots, and not only for therapeutic use. Can we really use robots at the nano level? Or can we reduce our current machines to that size? We simply do not have the technology yet to make microscopic robotics…
This does not mean that nanomedicine is impossible. Nanomaterials can do anything from improve dental and bone implants, because their mechanical and chemical properties can be tuned to match those of the surrounding tissue, as well as improving medical imaging and better delivering drugs in the body.
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cancer cell
Modern cancer treatments like radiation and chemotherapy have proven remarkably effective at treating many cancers, especially in combination, but are plagued with toxic side effects. These treatments kill healthy cells as well as cancerous ones. Nanotechnology offers the means to aim therapies directly and selectively at cancerous cells.
Chemotherapy employs drugs that are known to kill cancer cells effectively. But these drugs kill healthy cells in addition to tumor cells, leading to adverse side effects such as hair-loss, nausea, neuropathy, fatigue, and compromised immune function.
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Nanotechnology has reached critical mass. Nowhere is this more evident than in medicine. Rising medical costs, demands for less-invasive procedures and pressures for immediate feedback of medical conditions, all point to nanotechnology as offering a new approach in healthcare.
When a person suffers from eye ailments today, nine times out of ten, he will be prescribed eye drops to treat his illness or relieve his discomfort. However, 95 percent of the medication administered in this manner flows to where it is not needed. Most eye medications are delivered by drops. The drops usually mix with tears and drain into the nasal cavity, where they can flow through the blood stream to other organs and cause serious side effects. In addition, dosage through eye drops is inconsistent and difficult to regulate, as most of the drugs are released in an initial burst of concentration.
To counter these problems, researchers have been studying the use of contact lenses to deliver eye medication.
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Nanotechnology is the creation of functional materials, devices and systems. Nanotechnology makes use of minuscule objects – whose width can be 10,000 times narrower than a human hair – known as nanoparticles. A scientific and technical revolution has just begun based upon the ability to systematically organize and manipulate matter at nanoscale.
An atom has a diameter of about 0.1 nm. An atom’s nucleus is much smaller – about 0.00001 nm. Atoms are the building blocks for all matter in our universe. You and everything around you are made of atoms. Nature has perfected the science of manufacturing matter molecularly. For instance, our bodies are assembled in a specific manner from millions of living cells. Cells are nature’s nanomachines. At the atomic scale, elements are at their most basic level. On the nanoscale, we can potentially put these atoms together to make almost anything.
You might be surprised to find out how many products on the market are already benefiting from nanotechnology. Upwards of 600 products on store shelves today contain them, including transparent sunscreen, lipsticks, anti-aging creams etc.
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Ordered one way, atoms make up homes and fresh air, and ordered another way, they make up ash and smoke. Coal and diamonds, cancer and healthy tissue are made out of the variations of atoms too and variations in the ordering of atoms turn precious in cheap, or sick in healthy.
