Nanotechnology and Medicine

[sunnpat]

Hi,
I was wondering if anybody knew of any applications of nanotechnology in medicine being used these days.
I am thinking of writing an article on the future possibilities of Nanomedicine.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Sunny

 

[CycloWizard]

Google is your friend

There are too many that I can think of off the top of my head for me to even begin listing them here, so maybe you should pick one area (e.g. drug delivery) and focus on that instead of trying to cover the broader topic.

 

[mryellow2]

http://www.ece.rice.edu/~halas/articles/PopSci03.pdf

http://www.ece.rice.edu/~halas/


I'm not sure if they've begun testing on human subjects yet but interesting technology nonetheless.

 

[Mark R]

I routinely come across the use of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (almost daily where I work). See here for more information.

 

[YoshiSato]

I'm still waiting for my immune system nanobots.

But I don't think they will be here in time for the bird ful should it ever be a problem.

 

[patentman]

Three words, drug delivery systems. Google them.

 

[martensite]

Originally posted by: Mark R
I routinely come across the use of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (almost daily where I work). See here for more information.

Hi Mark, do you also work in this field? For my graduate program, I have just started research into the use of iron oxide nanoparticles (with and without polymer coating) for cancer therapy and drug delivery. Quite an interesting topic; but pretty tricky getting it to work.

For the OP, more information on magnetic nanoparticles for biotechnology (cancer therapy, drug deliver, gene delivery, immunoassays, MRI etc) can be found here:
http://www.magneticmicrosphere.com/

EDIT: let me also mention the use of magnetic nanoparticles for treatment of cancer by hyperthermia. Hyperthermia is the heating up of cancerous tissue to a temperature between 43 to 48 deg Celsius, which causes destruction of the tumor, but leaves surrounding tissue unharmed.

Iron oxide nanoparticles are injected (minimally invasive) into the body near the tumor and guided there by a strong external magentic field gradient. Then an A.C. magentic field is applied, usually upto 3 kA/m, and around 30 minutes, to cause heating up of these nanoparticles. After the treatment, the nanoparticles are removed normally by the body's defense mechanisms.

If you can coat these nanoparticles with anti-cancer drugs which release upon heating, then the treatment becomes extremely powerful, because th dosage will be localized at the tumor, and not wasted on the entire body.

This is all in theory.

However, in real life, it is a rather difficult problem due to many factors like insufficient fiedl generation at deeper areas in the body, uptake and destruction of the particles by the body's RES before they reach the tumor site, insufficient or improper heat localization/distribution due to the different types of tissue and blood vessels, temperature monitoring problems etc etc.

Recently, human clinical trials have begun in a hospital in Berlin. Lets hope that this works out well, because conventional hyperthermia methods are pretty bad, and often involve invasive techniques like surgery.

 

[Bassyhead]

While clicking on this thread I was reading this

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: martensite

Originally posted by: Mark R
I routinely come across the use of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (almost daily where I work). See here for more information.

Hi Mark, do you also work in this field? For my graduate program, I have just started research into the use of iron oxide nanoparticles (with and without polymer coating) for cancer therapy and drug delivery. Quite an interesting topic; but pretty tricky getting it to work.

I only iron oxide nanoparticles for imaging - I don't deal with drug development.

I use them for liver MRI. You can't always tell normal liver from tumor on MRI (they both produce the same amount of 'signal') - but give a dose of iron oxide nanoparticles, and they get taken up in by the RES healthy liver cells. Once there, they cause localised distortion of the scanner's magnetic field and destroy the 'signal' coming from the healthy liver - making any tumors much more obvious.

As far as I'm aware, IO isn't approved for routine use in the US yet - but is used relatively regularly in Europe.

There is increasing interest in 'functional' imaging agents - e.g. a tumor-specific antibody bound to a contrast agent - and IO nanoparticles are just one such agent.

 

[sunnpat]

Hey guys
Thanks for the advise, most of the stuff was useful.
Especially the new stuff on the hyperthermic treatment of cancerous tissue.
I am probably going to take the avenue of writing this article as a day in the life of a medical student in 25-50 years time.
Any other ideas please let me know, you all have been really helpful.
Sunny