Nanotechnology In Medicine
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.
In fact, nanomedicine doesn’t even exist yet. There are only nanoprojects in medicine embodiment of which will lead to the “eternal youth” due to canceling the aging.
Nanotechnology is a more than promising radical solution to the problem of aging. Nanobots can participate (as in addition to genetic engineering, and instead of it) in the redesign of the genome of the cells, changing or adding new genes to improve the functions of the cell.
The important point is that such transformation in the future can be performed on live cells, already existing body, altering the genome of individual cells, in any way to transform the body itself!
Investments in this area (already billions of dollars) are growing rapidly, and some simple techniques of molecular manufacturing are already applying.
Nanotechnology may lead the world into a new technological revolution and completely change not only the economy but also the habitat of man.
It is possible that after improvements to ensure the “eternal youth” nanobots will no longer be needed.
To achieve these goals, humanity must address three main issues:
- Develop and establish a molecular robots that can repair the molecule.
- Develop and create nanocomputers, that will “instruct” the nanomachines.
- Write a complete description of all the molecules in the human body, in other words, create a map of the human body at the atomic level.
The main difficulty with nanotechnology is to create the first nanobots. There are several promising directions.
- One of them is to improve the scanning tunneling microscope or atomic force microscope and achieving a positional accuracy and power grabs.
- Another way to create the first nanobots leads through chemical synthesis. Perhaps the ingenious design and synthesize chemical compounds that are capable of self-assembly in solution.
- The third path leads through biochemistry. Ribosomes (inside cells) are specialized nanobots, and we can use them to create more versatile robots.
With nanotechnologists of the Foresight Institute said that the rapid growth of nanotechnology is out of control, but unlike Bill Joy, instead of a simple ban on the development of research in this area, they proposed to establish government control over the research.
Such oversight can prevent accidental disaster, such as nanobots create themselves (to infinity), consuming as building material all in its path, including plants, animals and people.
Ray Kurzweil predicts that it will be possible to place inside the circulatory system billions of nano-robots the size of a cell by 2020. According to Robert A. Freitas Jr, a leading scientist in the field of nanomedicine, this will happen only by 2030-2035.
These nanobots will be able to retard the aging process, heal individual cells and interact with individual neurons.