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Questions for the Class |
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[Answers are under the questions, highlight to view] |
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How is it that Nanotechnology is shaping medical applications? |
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Nanotechnology, "the manufacturing technology of the 21st century," should
let us economically build a broad range of complex molecular machines
(including, not incidentally, molecular computers). It will let us build
fleets of computer controlled molecular tools much smaller than a human
cell and built with the accuracy and precision of drug molecules. Such
tools will let medicine, for the first time, intervene in a sophisticated
and controlled way at the cellular and molecular level. They could remove
obstructions in the circulatory system, kill cancer cells, or take over the
function of subcellular organelles. Just as today we have the artifical
heart, so in the future we could have the artificial mitochondrion.
Equally dramatic, nanotechnology will give us new instruments to examine
tissue in unprecedented detail. Sensors smaller than a cell would give us
an inside and exquisitely precise look at ongoing function. Tissue that was
either chemically fixed or flash frozen could be analyzed literally down to
the molecular level, giving a completely detailed "snapshot" of cellular,
subcellular and molecular activities.
These applications are mind boggling and eye opening, that is why
Nanotechnology is so interesting in medicine. |
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How does the research in nanocapsules and nanoparticles, products of nanotechnology, aid in the delivery of medication that helps fight disease? |
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Nanocapsules are coated in special polymers and can resist the natural defense system of the body. This way they can be put into inhaled form, which is the only way that proteins can be delivered because otherwise they will be broken down in the body. Ultra-fine nanoparticles are now developing, which when inhaled not only are just as combative but also are more quickly absorbed into the blood stream as the more coarse particles of greater mass. |
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Nanotechnology and nanomachines are applied to many different aspects of science. Discuss, while giving a specific example of how nanomachines are affecting the medical industry. |
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It is predicted that nanorobots will be able to clear obstructions in the circulatory system, poison cancer cells, treat bacterial and viral infections, deliver oxygen to tissues damaged by injury or chronic disease, and monitor and report on internal bodily conditions for diagnostic purposes.
A specific example of how nanomachines are shaping the medical field is how medical robots are making the Ebola virus curable and treatable. These robots are injected into the patient and speed through the patients� veins, arteries, and capillaries, propelled by acoustic signals. They consist of a shell, one carbon atom thick, that encloses a DNA computer, sensors, and a tubular tank filled with Ebola-specific antivirus that when the nanorobot detects viral RNA it destroys the viral on contact. |
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Will Nanomachines be able to help detect any specific diseases? |
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Yes, technology so far has shown that nanomachines will be able to detect many diseases in general, but it has proven to specifically help forms of cystic fibrosis. Scientists held an experiment which showed the nanowire�s ability to check the severity of the disease by using merely a simple blood test. The nanotechnology can detect the gene for Cystic Fibrosis even more efficiently than the normal DNA tests for the gene. This will be a huge benefit because CF is the most common fatal genetic disease among people of European descent. |
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What current technologies are available in the field of Nanomachines? |
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To date, several nanoscale devices have been created. Among them there are a few composed of nucleic acids, or nanomechanical DNA devices, and nucleic acid molecular switches based on rybozyme structure. They have described nanomachines that could find practical implications in medicine. One of them is a model of an artificial red blood cells called respirocytes. |
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