Nanomedicine is one of the many applications of nanotechnology for monitoring or treating physiological conditions using nano-scale designed devices, particles, materials, drug delivery systems etc. Since nanomedicine implies dealing with how these tools and devices interact with complex biological systems, one could anticipate there are many issues to consider during their design, manufacturing, and delivery.
I would like to hear your opinion about this and have some input on why nanomedicine can be considered unique.
Simply nano materials have high specific surface area and they are close to molecule or atomic size which interact with out any size barriers.ex instead silver powder nano silver or used as antimicrobial and advantages are requires less silver (quantity) , highly effective.
Dear Dr. Rechiuti,
The way I see it, nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology for diagnosis, treatment and management of human health. Hence it's not possible to compare nanomedicine, to other nanotechnology based medical applications since they would de facto fall under the category of nanomedicine. But in case I got it wrong and your question was the application differences between nanomedical and other nanotechnological based studies, then I would rather go with the answer: targeted solutions, theranostics (therapeutics + diagnostics) and personalized medicine . Nanomedicine practices allow us to,
-Target specific sites, cells, tumors, tissues etc. (either using, smart assembly, DNA or RNA recognition based solutions etc. or dyes, quantum dots etc.)
-Theranostics to monitor (bioimaging) and threat the diseases simultaneously.
-Personalize medical care in order to threat patients individually based on their specific needs&conditions.
However, so far very few successful studies have been published and there are many experimental, clinical and ethical challenges.
On another note one should also mention the device aspect of nanomedicine, which I believe to be the most practical one. With the development of semi-conductor technologies, micro-nano fabrication methods and combining them with microbiology, it is now possible to design and produce lab-on-chip test kits. DNA and/or RNA based nanosensors are rising stars of this field to detect certain diseases in short time, low sample volume and high yield. I am certain that in the future supermarkets will be selling a lot of lab-on-chip kits next to pregnancy and blood type tests.
magnetic nanoparticles like iron oxide are best suited for targeted drug delivery since they can be monitored and can be controlled with the help of MRI or by applying magnetic field. when the iron oxide particle reaches the targeted site, by applying ac magnetic field the drug can be released.
for enhancing the contrast at tumor or some other region, one can use semiconducting nanoparticles (quantum dots) and get more details.
like wise there are so many applications and these will increase once scientists understand about how to fully control the properties of the materials at nanoscale
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