Applications and uses of nanomedicine

Nanomedicine is when nanotechnology, the science of things smaller than 1000 nanometres in size, is applied to the field of medicine. There are a wide variety of uses in this area, ranging from the use of biosensors for detection of anomalies in the body, such as high blood sugar concentration, which would suggest diabetes, to the concept of nanorobots, developed using molecular nanotechnology. Currently, nanomedicine has applications in:

• Drug delivery systems – as drugs get smaller, they will be able to easily “sneak” past the body’s defence mechanisms and will be able to reach places that the drugs available today cannot. Because smaller compounds have a large surface area to volume ratio, these new drugs should also be more reactive.

• Disease detection – tiny nanoparticles known as “quantum dots” can be made to give off different colours depending on their size. They can also be made to attach to different biological components, such as certain proteins in certain colours, making it much easier to analyse blood for specific components.

• Destruction of diseased tissues – this technology makes use of nanoshells, microscopic balls of glass coated in gold. Nanoshells can also be designed to bind to specific components in the body, and can then be heated by lasers to destroy damaged tissue without causing any more damage to skin or other close by tissue.

• Drug discovery – pharmaceutical companies have started using nanotechnologies to develop genetically targeted drugs. This allows for much more precise drug development, and makes it faster to decide whether or not a substance is suitable for use in a drug.

These are just some of the many applications that nanomedicine already has, and it is certain that many more uses will come to light over the next few years. It has already been said that the successful development of a medical nanorobot would “change the world of medicine forever”.

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