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The editors at Associates Degree in Nursing decided to research the topic of:
Nanomedicine: The Future of Medicine
Nanomedicine, refers to highly specific medical intervention at the molecular level for curing disease or repairing damaged tissues. Though in its infancy, could we be looking at the future of medicine? Early clinical trials certainly look promising.
How Nanomedicine Works
- Nanomedicine works by injecting nanoparticles into the body
- Can be used to:
- Deliver medicine
- Find and treat disease
- Repair damaged cells
One human hair is approximately 80,000 nanometers wide
Applications of Nanomedicine
- Drug Delivery
- Using nanotechnology to deliver medicine, diabetic rats kept stable blood sugar levels for 10 days after injection
- Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment
- Using microRNA from a patient's blood plasma and nanotechnology:
- Medical professionals can determine if lung cancer is present
- Begin treatment the same day
- Using Nano-Therm therapy to overheat brain cancer cells helps to destroy them
- In clinical trials, those with recurrent glioblastoma survived a median of 13 months
- More than double the survival rate of those not receiving Nano-Therm therapy
Nanotechnology is already commonly used in sunscreen and to make tennis balls more bouncy
- Flu Testing
- Today's flu tests are:
- Time consuming
- Inaccurate
- Nanomedicine gold flu testing provides:
- Instant results
- Immediate treatment cycle to avoid spreading to others
- commercial nanotech testing no more than 5 years away
- Cell Feedback
- Nanomedicine can be used to test cell's response to drugs offering new drug testing methods
- Provides instant feedback to how cells respond to medicine
- Can save years and millions of dollars on testing and clinical trials
- Can improve current medications
In a 1956, Arthur C. Clarke first envisioned the concept of nanotechnology in a short story, The Next Tenants
Advantages of Nanomedicine
- Faster diagnosis of many ailments
- More precise treatments of conditions such as cancer
- Repair tissue deep within the body
- Target only diseased organs, lessening the need for drugs
Sources
- https://commonfund.nih.gov/nanomedicine/overview.aspx
- http://www.understandingnano.com/medicine.html
- http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn400630x
- http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v6/n10/full/nnano.2011.147.html
- http://www.dana.org/news/features/detail_bw.aspx?id=35592
- http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2011/AN/C1AN15303J
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201001642/abstract
- http://www.clinam.org/benefits.html
