As a market,
bionanotechnology is projected to grow world-wide by a rate of 28%. No further explanation is needed why the
field is increasingly considered “the future of everything,” even if its
potential for raising concerns is seldom overlooked and no FDA
regulations exist to date.
As one can always
safely assume with interdisciplinary areas, the father of all things is a
dispute over terminology – in this case, the distinction, if any, between
nanobiotechnology and bionanotechnology. Although enough ink is being spilled
on that, it hardly matters: if nanobiotechnology, as a Lilliput version of
biotechnology, takes concepts and fundamentals directly from nanotechnology to
biotechnological use, bionanotechnology derives its concepts from mechanics,
electricity, electronics, optics, and biology, and relates structural and mechanistic
analysis of molecular-level biological
processes into specific synthetic applications of nanotechnology. Not a
distinction without a difference, but it matters little due to one principal
characteristic of all nanotechnology: at the molecular and submolecular scale, biochemistry,
biophysics, biology, and all other forms of human inquiry converge. Thus, multidisciplinarity is inherent.
The reason for which nanotechnology
is widely viewed as a quantum leap in “everything” is its promise of a systemic
solution rather than a symptomatic one: nanotechnology takes the solution
eye-to-eye with the problem by controlling and mimicking devices and processes
of molecular size. Life itself is an example of unmanageably complex
nanoprocesses and nanodevices. Bringing the solution to the level of its
targeted issues promises more adequate solutions to a wide array of challenges.
As the scale of nanotechnology increasingly coincides with the scale of
fundamental biological structures and components, biophysics and biochemistry
converge and merge in applications. Some technologies are developed top-down as
miniaturizations of existing concepts, for example microfluidic biochips that
are reduced to nanofluidic ones. Others are based on a build up of molecular
components in a bottom-up approach that is typically favored by chemists. Examples
here are dendrimers.
Nanobiotechnology, as a branch of nanotechnology dealing
with biological and biochemical applications or uses, attempts in its
biomimetic approach to engineering solutions to mimic nature to achieve
technological objectives. One of its aims is to combine biological and
electronic systems enabling, for example, interfacing immensely minimized
integrated semiconductor circuits with nerve cells to increasingly compensate
for mechanical or degenerative damage to neurological functions.
Bionanotechnology harnesses an immense and diverse array of self-assembling
building blocks and processes to create nano-level structures resulting in
the creation of extremely effective materials at extremely small scale. The
single most fruitful approach has been to study existing elements of living
organisms or natural phenomena to fabricate new nanodevices.
The greatest promises
of nanobiotechnology lay in applications for medicine, particularly biosensing,
biocontrol, genomics, computing, information storage, energy conversion,
nanomotors, and nanolasers. Nanodiagnostics are expected to improve sensitivity
and extend limits of current-day molecular diagnostics. Sequencing single DNA molecules is already
feasible. Drug delivery - including intracellular delivery - is about to be
revolutionized by nanostructures such as fullerenes, because they permit
precise grafting of active chemical groups in three-dimensional orientations.
And controlled-release devices operating autonomously can be
conceived as a response to emerging needs.
Nanomachines are
modified biological entities driven by an engine as energy source. They may
identify pathogens, repair host cells, destroy infected or malignated cells,
and to that end may even be equipped with high-intensity lasers. They could diagnose pathological tissues, but also
remove or restore them, rendering classical invasive surgery a thing of the
past. They will significantly improve implant technology, as well as tissue
engineering and treatment of injuries from biological
warfare and poisoning. Finally, nanobiotechnological approaches bear
markedly higher promise to remedy known vascular diseases such as coronary
heart disease – which is, of course, a systemic affliction not limited to
either heart of brain – than conventional pharmaceutical therapies, bypass
surgery or angioplasty.
Nanobiotechnology
will also bring about revolutionary changes in our use and recovery of natural
resources, energy (such as high-efficiency fuel cells, improved solar energy
conversion, hydrogen storage in nanotubes), water, and waste. It may not be a
matter of progress by innovation and economic efficiency but of sheer survival.
The theory that the next major wars in the Third World are likely to be fought
over water is based on the U.N.’s prediction that 48 countries representing 32%
of the world population will experience severe fresh water
shortages by 2025. As a result, water purification and desalination
improved by orders of magnitude so that future water demands can be met globally
is not merely a technological and economic challenge but an imperative of
preventative safeguarding national and international security and environmental
protection. Nanobiotechnology can be one of the answers also here. That fact
alone most likely ought to warrant teragrowth of nanotechnology as an industry.
The difficulty of measuring the full extent of its benefits lay, as always, in
the accounting treatment of averted harm or loss, particularly on a global
scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment