Medical applications of nanotechnologies are shaping up to be one of the most significant and game changing areas we study. We thought it time to have a quick gallop through some of the reasons that makes nanotechnology an enabling and disruptive science with such a huge potential for applications in medicine and biomedicine.
Most biological processes occur at the nanoscale. Each living cell is composed of elementary components such as DNA that perform all their biological processes at nanoscale. You could argue that living organisms, including humans, are, in fact, composed of biological nanomachines built by Mother Nature from the bottom up. Even the processes occurring at structures that are not alive but behave like living organisms (viruses, for example) occur at the nanoscale.
The Laws of Quantum Physics
Matter, in general, can exhibit unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties at the nanoscale, differing deeply from the properties that usually show at the macro scale. Melting point, fluorescence, electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and chemical reactivity (just to mention a few examples) change on the nanoscale. The behaviour of matter at the macro scale is explained by Newtonian classical laws of physics but the behaviour of matter at nanoscale can be explained more readily by the laws of quantum physics.
The Relationship Between Volume and Available Surface Area
At the nanoscale, the relationship between volume and available surface area determines the behaviour of atoms, molecules and molecular nanostructures. When the size decreases towards the nanoscale, the available surface area per mass of a material increases dramatically. As a consequence, a greater amount of the material can be into contact with the surroundings, increasing reactivity.
Nanotechnology in Diagnostics
The tools developed to allow us to measure on the nanoscale allows scientists to study and manipulate molecules at nanoscale during the earliest stages of cancer development. This gives the potential to provide rapid, sensitive and affordable detection of cancer-related molecules, enabling scientists to detect molecular changes even in a small number of cells. Nanotechnology also has the potential to develop new methods of diagnostics, more accurate, more precautious, more affordable, portable in many cases, and personalized.
Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery
It is now possible to design new molecular nanostructures on a computer. It is also possible predict and simulate by computer (with high precision) how molecular nanostructures are going to look, behave, interact and react. This combination of computing power and nanoscience is enabling researchers to design molecular nanostructures and customize them, utilizing their unique behaviours, for a variety of purposes.
As an example, the concept of the nano carrier plays a central role in this new approach giving us the potential to generate entirely novel and highly effective drugs of the future.
Nanotechnology in Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering
Regeneration of wounded or damaged tissues, establishing de novo synapses between wounded or damaged neurons, skin protection and repair are just a few examples of objects of study and intense work by nanoscientists.
For example, scaffolding can already make use of highly functionalised new nanomaterials. Scaffolds made with nano-engineered polymers and self-fitting are improving the repair of wounded or damaged tissue or cells.
Nanotechnology can also be applied to wound dressings, for detection, control and treatment of infections of conjunctive, skeletal, vascular, muscular and nerve tissues, for example.
Nanotechnology is beginning to revolutionize a wide range of medical and biomedical tools, procedures, approaches and processes: more precise, directed and targeted, effective, personalized, portable, less expensive, safer, easier to administer and causing less adverse side-effects.