Nanomedicine is the branch of nanotechnology applied in the field of health, and progress in this branch of science is directed to the design of particles, materials and barometric devices capable of entering most cells (10 and 20 microns) without triggering immune response and interacting with biological materials in a more direct and precise way than systems and drugs used to date. The ability to penetrate such areas of the body have proven difficult with current technologies.
The potential benefits of producing nanomedicine seem inexhaustible: providing new methods of diagnosis, developing different tools for monitoring certain biological parameters, and administering drugs through delivery systems which are safer and less toxic. However, products and their increasingly sophisticated systems will become economically unattainable for some sectors of the population. The American National Science Foundation predicts that by 2015, one half of the pharmaceutical market will use nanotechnology, with a worth of 10 billion dollars.
JUAN JOSE HERRERA VANEGAS
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
08
Jul
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology includes the study, design, creation, synthesis, manipulation and application of materials, devices and functional systems through the control of matter and exploitation of its properties and phenomena at nanoscale (atoms and molecules). It received scientific attention around 1953, when Watson and Crick proposed DNA as the cornerstone of the regulation of all chemical processes of living beings, thus highlighting the crucial importance of molecules in the processes of life. DNA has a width of about 2.5 nm. Some proteins such as hemoglobin have a diameter of about 5nm.
Nanomedicine is the branch of nanotechnology applied in the field of health, and progress in this branch of science is directed to the design of particles, materials and barometric devices capable of entering most cells (10 and 20 microns) without triggering immune response and interacting with biological materials in a more direct and precise way than systems and drugs used to date. The ability to penetrate such areas of the body have proven difficult with current technologies.
The potential benefits of producing nanomedicine seem inexhaustible: providing new methods of diagnosis, developing different tools for monitoring certain biological parameters, and administering drugs through delivery systems which are safer and less toxic. However, products and their increasingly sophisticated systems will become economically unattainable for some sectors of the population. The American National Science Foundation predicts that by 2015, one half of the pharmaceutical market will use nanotechnology, with a worth of 10 billion dollars.
JUAN JOSE HERRERA VANEGAS
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
Nanomedicine is the branch of nanotechnology applied in the field of health, and progress in this branch of science is directed to the design of particles, materials and barometric devices capable of entering most cells (10 and 20 microns) without triggering immune response and interacting with biological materials in a more direct and precise way than systems and drugs used to date. The ability to penetrate such areas of the body have proven difficult with current technologies.
The potential benefits of producing nanomedicine seem inexhaustible: providing new methods of diagnosis, developing different tools for monitoring certain biological parameters, and administering drugs through delivery systems which are safer and less toxic. However, products and their increasingly sophisticated systems will become economically unattainable for some sectors of the population. The American National Science Foundation predicts that by 2015, one half of the pharmaceutical market will use nanotechnology, with a worth of 10 billion dollars.
JUAN JOSE HERRERA VANEGAS
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION