Nanotechnolgy & Health Care

Nanotechnology is the science of engineering at the molecular level. The term comes from "nano," meaning one-billionth. Thus a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. If you could slice a human hair lengthwise into 100,000 slices, one slice would be a nanometer wide. Nanomedicine involves research to use devices, drug delivery systems and other treatments on the nano scale.

Significance

• Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize health care. Once developed, nanorobots can squeeze through blood vessels to repair or deliver drugs, eliminating expensive large scale treatment methods.

Time Frame

• Some early medical nanotechnological devices are already being tested. Estimates vary about how long before a fully developed technology will be in place. A general consensus seems to be within the next 20 to 30 years (see Resources).

Features

• A prime example of using nanotechnology in health care is current experiments by Robert A. Freitas to develop a method to build a mechanosynthetic tooltip on the nano level, an essential step in developing nano machines (see Resources).

Benefits

• Benefits include reductions in the cost of health care, far less invasive operations and testing, and even chromosome manipulation and repair to get rid of mutations and cell aging, leading to increased longevity.

Potential

• Nanotechnology in health care has the potential to repair individual cells, insert a nano-sized laboratory into the body, and replace invasive medical tests with wireless or biotelemetry systems.