Single units of a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology in medicine makes use of nanometer sized chips to store and interprets high density quality information. It shows desired utility in accordance with pre-programmed instructions on target tissues. It is increasingly being applied to coax regulation of functional systems at the molecular level. This micro-miniature technology is increasingly finding its way to cure diseases with out the use of surgery. Most of our ailments are the external manifestations of damage caused at the cellular and molecular levels. Rectification to these damages can not be undertaken by conventional surgical instruments too large and crude for the cellular and molecular level manipulation.

Currently when much research is being carried out in cell biology and genetics at its basic precision and accurate level, the call of the hour is devising of a technology that is able to cater to the structure and functions at this level. The nanotechnology is being engineered to intervene as molecular-machines which are sophisticated and well controlled at the unit level. With the use of this technology the micro-molecules injected in the human body will be able to remove obstructions of any kind, function as sub cellular organelles, and kill cancer cells and much more. Nano engineers in Singapore have engineered a polymerized contact lens which is capable of will releasing small amounts of medicine to treat eye related ailments such as glaucoma.

The mechanism that will function behind nanotechnology at cellular level is by way of designing and erecting a programmable self-replicating manufacturing devise capable of identifying defective cells whilst circulating in the circulating system. These devices which are programmable and controllable can detect cancer cells by sensing differential environment between the normal cells and cancer cells and any other unwanted structures. Nanotechnology will be used to supply oxygen to tissues having minimized blood supply due to any of the blood loss reasons. Scientists at MIT have used an artificially synthesized polymer attached to a specific gene coding for the bacterial toxic. The polymer acts like a suicide bomber and attacks the altered cells and gradually destroys it in the process.

Drug delivery to the specific target cells with the help of nano sized particles is more efficient due to its enhanced properties of solubility and absorption when attached to a molecular carrier such as a polymer. The bio-chips making use of nanotechnology will also facilitate the scrutinizing of levels of biochemical in the blood stream and release suitable drug accordingly.

Molecular Robots

nano!

Home Nanofactory

You hear nanotechnology used more and more often these days – and it has made some impact in everyday life. But the real change and payoff will occur much further down the road when real molecular manufacturing is possible.

Dr. Eric Drexler, author of Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, has been pushing this field for twenty years, and it’s finally starting to go mainstream.

What Is Nanotechnology?

A nanofactory is Dr. Drexler’s concept for safe production of everyday objects from a desktop device that converts raw material molecules into finished products. In a matter of hours! Various predictions put the nanofactory in the 2020 to 2030 time-frame.

Once the basic capability exists to build large objects – such as a hand-held computer – from molecules and atoms, we will be able to build anything we want to build. This changes how life will be lived more than anything since the printing press.

How Will We Use Nanotechnology?

For example: Your health will be dramatically improved when your immune system has assistance in the form of intelligent virus detection capability. A tiny robot the size of a blood cell can add tremendous detection capability to your existing body immune system.

In a larger context, nanotechnology will allow the creation of incredibly strong materials that allow you to build such things as a global warming moderation system, or an asteroid defense system. Whereas such systems could be built now to some degree, those systems become cheap and readily available with the advent of nanotechnology.

Taking the meteor defense as an example, with today’s technology it would be a $500 million system to build something that could deflect a small meteorite from a collision course with the earth. It would be as complex as the International Space Station. Details of these systems are documented at NanoFuture2030.

Whereas with nanotechnology – and specifically with nanofactory manufacturing capability – you could:

send a fifty pound package to the moon, have that package mine its own resources from the surface of the moon, build a launch capability, throw completed spacecraft subsystems into orbit around the moon, and send that spacecraft off to an asteroid where it would set up, build, and implement a thrusting device on the asteroid that would move it away from a collision course with Earth.All this would occur without human intervention and without cost, other than the original package delivered to the moon.

This may sound like science fiction, but with nanotechnology in the mix, science will become much more powerful than anything we’ve seen so far.

Molecular Manufacturing Systems