Page 9 - My FlipBook

“The future of
have interacted with molecules found only
nanotechnology have interacted with molecules found only
and particularly on the surface of cancer cells. This meth-
nano-diagnostics is od “provides great opportunities to im-
here!” 23 prove cancer diagnosis,” says cancer
researcher Ye Zhang, “which will ultimately
— T.C. Jackson, medical researcher Ye Zhang, “which will ultimately
researcher lead to an improved cancer patient survival
lead to an improved cancer patient survival
rate.” Another researcher who is experiment-rate.” 22
ing with nanoparticles, T.C. Jackson, agrees.
ing with nanoparticles, T.C. Jackson, agrees.
“The future of nanotechnology and particularly nano-diagnostics is
here!” he enthusiastically states. “The possibilities in this sphere of
healthcare delivery will continue being in leaps and bounds.” 23

Special Delivery of Medicines
Meanwhile, the scientifi c teams from Clemson, USC, and other
collegiate, private, and government-sponsored labs continue
their efforts to effectively use nanoparticles of diverse types to
carry therapeutic, or healing, drugs into the body. Some of the
methods and approaches in this branch of nanotechnology re-
main completely experimental. However, a few have been tested
to one degree or another in hospitals and clinics for about two
decades. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, some researchers
described a possible task for liposomes, which are microscopic
circular, bag-like membranes. Each liposome can hold from one
to several water molecules. The idea was to collect several million
of those miniature sacks and inject molecules of certain medi-
cines into them. The liposomes would then carry those drugs into
specifi c body parts to create a therapeutic effect.
At the time, no one called those potential microscopic medi-
cine carriers nanoparticles or nanomedicines because nanotech-
nology as an offi cial branch of science did not yet exist. Only later,
in the 1990s, did nanotechnology really start to come into its own
as a scientifi c discipline. From then on, labs around the world ex-
panded research into what some researchers came to call “spe-
cial delivery medicine” on a microscopic scale. After much experi-
mentation, they were able to engineer liposomes and other tiny

24