Medical nanotechnology is a branch of
nanotechnology which applies principles in this field to health care
issues. Nanotechnology is a broad spectrum of scientific endeavors
which involves manufacturing and machining which take place on a
molecular scale. There are a number of potential applications for
medical nanotechnology, and in its early phases, many people were
quite excited about the huge changes which could occur in the
medical world with the assistance of medical technology.
Some concerns have been raised about the
use of nanomaterials in the medical field. Some people are worried
that nanoparticles could interfere with normal body function, making
people sick, or that nondevices could get out of control, resulting
in activities beyond those for which they are designed. Thus, much
of medical nanotechnology is focused on making it safe for patients
and medical providers. The history of medicine is filled with
examples of concepts and procedures which were initially viewed with
deep skepticism and later widely embraced; most people today, for
example, widely accept that they should wash their hands regularly,
but this idea was heretical when it was introduced in the 1800s.
Because nanotechnology operates on such a
small scale, it offers the opportunity to create precisely targeted
surgical instruments, drug delivery systems, and implants. Nanobots,
for example, could be used to perform a non-invasive medical imaging
study inside the body, or to perform surgical procedures.
Nanomaterials can also be implanted into the body; for example,
someone with a badly damaged bone or joint could be treated with
nanoparticles which would promote new growth, regrowing the damaged
tissue.
Medical nanotechnology also makes cell
repair on a molecular level possible, and provides a number of
opportunities for medication administration. Drugs developed through
nanotechnology could directly penetrate cells, for example, or
nanoparticles could be designed to target cancer cells, delivering
medication or providing a focal point for radiation. Medical
nanotechnology can also be used to make biosensors which can be
implanted into patients for monitoring, along with medical devices
which are designed to be permanently implanted such as pacemakers.
Medical nanotechnology also makes cell
repair on a molecular level possible, and provides a number of
opportunities for medication administration. Drugs developed through
nanotechnology could directly penetrate cells, for example, or
nanoparticles could be designed to target cancer cells, delivering
medication or providing a focal point for radiation. Medical
nanotechnology can also be used to make biosensors which can be
implanted into patients for monitoring, along with medical devices
which are designed to be permanently implanted such as pacemakers.
Manufactured products are made from
atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms
are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond.
If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace
elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in
dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.
Today's manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level.
Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great
thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of
LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the
LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really
snap them together the way you'd like.
In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing
gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building
blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways
permitted by the laws of physics. This will be essential if we are
to continue the revolution in computer hardware beyond about the
next decade, and will also let us fabricate an entire new generation
of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise.
It's worth pointing out that the word "nanotechnology" has become
very popular and is used to describe many types of research where
the characteristic dimensions are less than about 1,000 nanometers.
For example, continued improvements in lithography have resulted in
line widths that are less than one micron: this work is often called
"nanotechnology." Sub-micron lithography is clearly very valuable
(ask anyone who uses a computer!) but it is equally clear that
conventional lithography will not let us build semiconductor devices
in which individual dopant atoms are located at specific lattice
sites. Many of the exponentially improving trends in computer
hardware capability have remained steady for the last 50 years.
There is fairly widespread belief that these trends are likely to
continue for at least another several years, but then conventional
lithography starts to reach its limits.
If we are to continue these trends we will have to develop a new
manufacturing technology which will let us inexpensively build
computer systems with mole quantities of logic elements that are
molecular in both size and precision and are interconnected in
complex and highly idiosyncratic patterns. Nanotechnology will let
us do this.
