NANOTECH: THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE

The ability to send very small and helpful robots into the body had been a human dream for several decades, but now, the dream is true and is known as nanotechnology.

         Nanotech has many different uses in a variety of fields such as science, engineering, but most important of them all is medicine. These small 1/1000000000 meter robots can be used to treat many different molecular diseases, such as AIDS or Malaria. These materials and devices can be designed to interact with cells and tissues at a molecular level, for applications in medicine and physiology, with a high degree of functional specificity, thus allowing a degree of integration between technology and biological systems not previously attainable. [1]

           The working of these microorganism-like robots is even more dazzling.The robots, contained in a vaccine, are sent through the body's blood. Next, they attach to the type of cell they are supposed to go to, and then, do their job. This includes either inputting something into the cell, or extracting something out of it, or sometimes just taking a molecular photo of the cell. Molecular imaging has emerged as a powerful tool to visualize molecular events of an underlying disease, sometimes prior to its downstream manifestation.[2]

            The uses of such technology may greatly serve medicine, and in turn, humanity from many different diseases that could have destroyed it. These applications include fluorescent biological labels, drug and gene delivery, bio-detection of pathogens, detection of protein, probing of DNA structure, tissue engineering, tumor detection, separation and purification of biological molecules and cells, MRI contrast enhancement and phagokinetic studies.[3] Although it's hard to imagine, but these small unseen robots could save your life in the future. 

[1]. Silva GA. Introduction to nanotechnology and its applications to medicine. Surg Neurol. 2004;61:216–20.

[2]. Jones Nanoprobes for medical diagnosis: Current status of nanotechnology in molecular imaging. Curr Nanosci. 2008;4:17–29.

[3]. Salta OV. Applications of nanoparticles in biology and medicine. J Nanobiotech. 2004;2:3