Wednesday, July 8 2009

The application of nanotechnology, or any other technology, in medicine is amazing. We are just scratching the surface for applications in the health field. Nanomedicine is a term that refers to nanotechnology being used to help the health of people. An enormous amount of research and money is being poured into cancer solutions especially. The imagination is absolutely necessary in order to succeed in this field. Art really mixes in nicely.

Drug delivery is the hotspot of research right now. Putting cancer therapy drugs into tumor areas is tricky. Nanobots are on the forefront of this area. Nanobots would theoretically detect cancer cells and destroy them effectively. Not only can nanobots be used for treating diseases, but they can be used for stopping aging, and interfering in a number of physiological functions for good use. They could also be used for cleaning pollution in the air, cleaning clothes, or anything else. The sky is the limit. Maybe nanobots could be used to create supercomputers and could be applied to electronic devices.

An artists perception of nanorobots.

Another method for deliviring drugs are vaults. Vaults are in almost all eukaryotic cells. They are made up of proteins, one MVP and two minor proteins, and some RNA. They appear to have no function, and are hollow inside. Vaults are shaped a little like hot dogs. However, they seem to have a lot of potential because they are not foreign in the body. Cancer drugs could be put inside the vaults and once in the cell, they can release the drug to destroy the cancer cell.

LUCAS is an easy way to view a blood sample by using a device that captures a shadow image of blood cells. It is cheap, easy, and fast. It could be used to diagnose HIV and malaria.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/cell-phone-prototype-of-lensless-77054.aspx

http://www.nano-biology.net/showabstract.php?pmid=16608733

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=14520404&cmd=showdetailview

http://www.physorg.com/news116071209.html

http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_center/sci_biblio_enabled-therapeutics_abstracts.asp