Nanotechnology – How it can be a Boon for curing critical ailments

Gone are the days when the term ‘Nanotechnology’ could only be seen if someone went through the pages of some sci-fi novel. This term has proved to be a boon to the human civilization with lots of offerings, the most significant one being in the field of medical science. It has proved to be very helpful in curing critical Medical Ailments and has shown prospects of further growth in the near future which may see a rise of around $60 billion worth of demand for nano-medicines within 1-2 years.

What exactly is Nanotechnology?

Now you may be wondering what this entire buzz about nanotechnology is and what exactly it is. Basically nanotechnology can be described as a completely new field and dimension in applied science which enables to develop nano bots and medicines at the microscopic level. In the medicinal field, this nanotechnology is being used to store critical information in nanometer sized chips which ultimately helps in detecting several critical diseases. You can have your disease cured even without the use of surgery, something which one couldn’t think about in the recent past.

How can nanotechnology be helpful in curing diseases?

It is worth noting that most of the diseases we come across our lifetime, are mere external manifestations of some disturbances in the molecular or the cellular level. Now, if the roots of the disease are cured and taken off from the cellular level itself, we won’t need to have complicated surgeries at the macro level. This utility of nanotechnology steers it to the forefront in curing several disease starting from any kind of eye ailments to even cancer. One can make use of the polymerized contact lenses developed by Nano engineers in Singapore, which helps in curing glaucoma by releasing small amounts of medicine. The alma mater of the fact is that, due to miniscule size of the nano bots or medicines, they can provide efficient Drug Delivery systems to the affected cells.

Nanotechnology for Cancer –The deadly disease:

It is well said that when MRI, PET or CT fails to detect the metastatic dormant cancer cells, Nanotechnology comes to use. Right from detecting the sources of this disease to finding an effective solution to cure it, nanotechnology does it all. Various researches being carried out throughout the world reveal that nanotechnology can be the ultimate answer to this disease. By detecting the vibration patterns of some high frequency ultrasounds, doctors can now differentiate cancer cells from normal cells. Unlike chemotherapy which kills both the normal as well as the cancer cells, nanotechnology researchers are currently in the process of making a device to kill only the cancer cells.

The Final Verdict:

If someone is still waiting for my final verdict on this huge arena of applies science, then the only thing I may suggest to you is to go and have a look at the various researches being carried out at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University and other independent research firms and go through the results. The pace with which this field of applied and translational science is moving, it will surely eradicate some of the very critical ailments in the coming few years.

Nano News & Research

Researchers are working furiously to field defense nano technology for military application. Battle science laboritories are in hyperdrive to produce nanoscopic assemblers or nanogears to manipulate atomic matter and serve as replicators with endless production possibilities.

Nanobots and nano technology can be used to create innovative non woven textiles teeming with military potential. They offer promise as light weight ballistic protection, wound sealing properties, vitals tracking, and environmental adaptation to heating, cooling, and porous to non-porous membranes that can react to weather.

History

In the early 20th century, Henry Ford built a car manufacturing plant on a 2,000-acre tract of land along the Rouge River in Michigan . Built to mass-produce automobiles more efficiently, the Rouge housed the equipment for developing each phase of a car, including blast furnaces , a steel mill and a glass plant. More than 90 miles of railroad track and conveyor belts kept Ford's car assembly line running. The Rouge model was lauded as the most efficient method of production at a time when bigger meant better.

The size of Ford's assembly plant would look strange to those born and raised in the 21st century. In the next 50 years, machines will get increasingly smaller -- so small that thousands of these tiny machines would fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Within a few decades, we will use these nanomachines to manufacture consumer goods at the molecular level, piecing together one atom or molecule at a time to make baseballs, telephones and cars. This is the goal of nanotechnology . As televisions , airplanes and computers revolutionized the world in the last century, scientists claim that tactical nanotechnology will have an even more profound effect on the next century.

Nanotechnology is an umbrella term that covers many areas of research dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers . A nanometer (nm) is a billionth of a meter, or a millionth of a millimeter.

Building with Atoms
Atoms are the building blocks for all matter in our universe. You and everything around you are made of atoms. Nature has perfected the science of manufacturing matter molecularly. For instance, our bodies are assembled in a specific manner from millions of living cells.
Cells are nature's nanomachines. Humans still have a lot to learn about the idea of constructing materials on such a small scale. Consumer goods that we buy are made by pushing piles of atoms together in a bulky, imprecise manner. Imagine if we could manipulate each individual atom of an object. That's the basic idea of nanotechnology, and many scientists believe that we are only a few decades away from achieving it.
Nanogears no more than a nanometer wide could be used to construct a matter compiler, which could be fed raw material to arrange atoms and build a macro-scale structure.

Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering and chemistry. Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged atom. As millions of these atoms are pieced together by nanomachines, a specific product will begin to take shape. The goal of nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure. There are three steps to achieving nanotechnology-produced goods:

Scientists must be able to manipulate individual atoms . This means that they will have to develop a technique to grab single atoms and move them to desired positions. In 1990, IBM researchers showed that it is possible to manipulate single atoms. They positioned 35 xenon atoms on the surface of a nickel crystal, using an atomic force microscopy instrument. These positioned atoms spelled out the letters "IBM."

The next step will be to develop nanoscopic machines, called assemblers, that can be programmed to manipulate atoms and molecules at will. It would take thousands of years for a single assembler to produce any kind of material one atom at a time. Trillions of assemblers will be needed to develop products in a viable time frame.

In order to create enough assemblers to build

consumer goods, some nanomachines, called replicators , will be programmed to build more assemblers.

Trillions of assemblers and replicators will fill an area smaller than a cubic millimeter, and will still be too small for us to see with the naked eye . Assemblers and replicators will work together like hands to automatically construct products, and will eventually replace all traditional labor methods. This will vastly decrease manufacturing

costs, thereby making consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger. In the next section, you'll find out how nanotechnology will impact every facet of society, from medicine to computers.

A New Industrial Revolution

In January 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton requested a $227-million increase in the government's investment in nanotechnology research anddevelopment, which included a major initiative called the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). This initiative nearly doubled America 's 2000 budget investment in nanotechnology, bringing the total invested in nanotechnology to $497 million for the 2001 national budget. In a written statement, White House officials said that "nanotechnology is the new frontier and its potential impact is compelling." About 70 percent of the new nanotechnology funding will go to university research efforts, which will help meet the demand for workers with nanoscale science and engineering skills. The initiative will also fund the projects of several governmental agencies, including the National Science Foundation , the Department of Defense , the Department of Energy , the National Institutes of Health , NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Much of the research will take more than 20 years to complete, but the process itself could touch off a new industrial revolution. Nanotechnology is likely to change the way almost everything, including medicine, computers and cars, are designed and constructed. Nanotechnology is anywhere from five to 15 years in the future, and we won't see dramatic changes in our world right away. But let's take a look at the potential effects of nanotechnology on military tactical gear:

The first products made from nanomachines will be stronger fibers. Eventually, we will be able to replicate anything, including diamonds , water and food. Famine could be eradicated by machines that fabricate foods to feed the hungry.

In the computer industry, the ability to shrink the size of transistors on silicon microprocessors will soon reach its limits. Nanotechnology will be needed to create a new generation of computer components. Molecular computers could contain storage devices capable of storing trillions of bytes of information in a structure the size of a sugar cube.

Nanotechnology may have its biggest impact on the medical industry. Patients will drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses to make them harmless. There's even speculation that nanorobots could slow or reverse the aging process, and life expectancy could increase significantly. Nanorobots could also be programmed to perform delicate surgeries -- such nanosurgeons could work at a level a thousand times more precise than the sharpest scalpel. By working on such a small scale, a nanorobot could operate without leaving the scars that conventional surgery does. Additionally, nanorobots could change your physical appearance. They could be programmed to perform cosmetic surgery, rearranging your atoms to change your ears, nose, eye color or any other physical feature you wish to alter.

Nanotechnology has the potential to have a positive effect on the environment. For instance, airborne nanorobots could be programmed to rebuild the thinning ozone layer. Contaminants could be automatically removed from water sources, and oil spills could be cleaned up instantly. Manufacturing materials using the bottom-up method of nanotechno

logy also creates less pollution than conventional manufacturing processes. Our dependence on non-renewable resources would diminish with nanotechnology. Many resources could be constructed by nanomachines. Cutting down trees, mining coal or drilling for oil may no longer be necessary. Resources could simply be constructed by nanomachines.

The promises of nanotechnology sound great, don't they? Maybe even unbelievable? But researchers say that we will achieve these capabilities within the next century. And if nanotechnology is, in fact, realized, it might be the human race's greatest scientific achievement yet, completely changing every aspect of the way we live.