NANOBIOTECHNOLOGY: BioInspired Devices and Fabrics regarding the Future:. Senior Scientific Officer. SHRI AMM MURUGAPPA CHETTIAR RESEARCH CENTRE,. TARAMANI,CHENNAI-113 Studies and theoretical science, as we notice it today, has highly developed to a location in which, as an alternative of manipulating substances at the molecular level, we can manage them at the atomic level. This stirring operational space, where the laws of physics shift from Newtonian to quantum, gives us with novel discoveries, which hold the promise of future developments that, until in recent times, belonged to territory of science fiction.
Nanobiotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that covers an immeasurable and diverse array of technologies from engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology. It is expected to hold a dramatic infrastructural impact on most nanotechnology and biotechnology. Its applications should potentially be barely diverse, from building faster computers to finding cancerous tumors that are still invisible to person eye. As nanotechnology moves forward, the development of a nano-toolbox' appears to be an inevitable outcome. This toolbox shall give new technologies and instruments that shall facilitate molecular manipulation and fabrication via most top-down' and bottom up' approaches.
The term nano is derived from the Greek phrase nanos meaning dwarf, need and currently it is used like a prefix describing 109 one billionth of a measuring unit. Therefore, nanotechnology is the field of studies and fabrication that is on a scale of two to 100 nm. The nanometer has long been defined: it is one billionth of a meter or one thousandth of a micron, regarding the similar to order as the distance between 3 atoms in a solid multiple tenths of a nanometer. What is new is the ability to manipulate reason on scales ever closer to nanometer. This new knows how, this new technology, was naturally provided the name of nanotechnology.
The fabrication of such mini objects opened the method to an unique field of scientific investigation. Creating use of novel observational methods developed more or fewer simultaneously, abstract notions for example the wave function regarding the electron, the image' of a lone atom, or the presence of just one electron have grow to commonplace features of everyday experience. This newfound familiarity has indeed stimulated a rush of interest in those sciences that have benefited from it. The prime concept model was presented on December 29, 1959, when Richard Feynman presented a lecture entitled There is Plenty of Space at the Bottom at the annual meeting regarding the American Physical Society, the California Institute of Technology. Return then, manipulating lone atoms or molecules was not likely due to the fact that they were distant too mini for available tools.
Thus, his speech was completely theoretical and seemingly farfetched. He described how the laws of physics do not limit our ability to manipulate lone atoms and molecules. Instead, it was our lack regarding the appropriate methods for doing so. FROM BIOTECHNOLOGY TO BIONANOTECHNOLOGY. Researchers are currently on the edge to broaden biotechnology into bionanotechnology.
What is bionanotechnology, and how is it diverse from biotechnology? The 3 terms presently leave halves an overlapped region of topics. Bionanotechnology defined as applications that necessitate person creation and construction at the nanoscale position and shall label projects as biotechnology when nanoscale understanding and creation are not essential. Biotechnology grew from the use of natural enzymes to influence the genetic code, which was then used to revise whole organisms. The atomic information's were not really important, obtainable functionalities were combined to attain the end target. Within the present day, we have the aptitude to work at a many better position with a more detailed position of perceptive and power.
We have the gear to develop biological machines atom-by-atom regarding to our own plans. Presently, we should warm up our imagination and endeavor into the mysterious. Bionanotechnology has many unusual faces, but all share a central conception: the aptitude to intend molecular machinery to atomic specifications. Today, lone bionanomachines are being drafted and created to perform specific nanoscale tasks, for example the targeting of a cancer cell or the solution of a simple computational task. Many are toy problems, drafted to test our understanding and manage of these tiny machines.
As bionanotechnology matures, we shall redesign the biomolecular machinery regarding the cell to perform large-scale tasks for person well-being and technology. Macroscopic structures shall be built to atomic precision with existing biomolecular assemblers or by creating use of biological models for assembly. Seeing to cells, we can locate atomically precise molecule-sized motors, girders, random-access memory, sensors, and a host of other useful mechanisms, all ready to be harnessed by bionanotechnology. And the cutting edge designs for designing and constructing these machines in bulk scale is well worked out and ready for application today. Nanomedicine shall be the ubiquitous winner.
Bionanomachines work greatest within the environment of a living cell and so are tailored for health related applications. Complex molecules that seek out diseased or cancerous cells are already a reality. Sensors for diagnosing diseased states are below development. Replacement therapy, with custom-constructed molecules, is used currently to treat diabetes and growth hormone deficiencies, with many other applications on the horizon. Biomaterials are an extra foremost relevance of bionanotechnology.
We already use biomaterials widely. Glance through the space and notice how coppice is used to build your home and furnishing and how many cotton, wool, and other natural fibers are used in your clothing and books. Biomaterials address our growing ecological sensitivity-biomaterials are tough but biodegradable. Biomaterials also integrate perfectly with living tissue, so they can be necessary for health related applications. The production of hybrid machines, component biological and component inorganic, is another active region of studies in bionanotechnology that promises to yield good fruits.
Bionanomachines, for example light sensors or antibodies, are readily combined with silicon devices created by microlithography. These hybrids give a link between the nanoscale world of bionanomachines and the macroscale world of computers, allowing direct sensing and manage of nanoscale events. Finally, Drexler and others have seen biological molecules as an avenue to reach their own goal of mechanosynthesis creating use of nanorobots. Certainly, biology gives the tools for building objects one atom at a time. Perhaps as our understanding grows, bionanomachines shall be coaxed into building objects that are completely foreign to biological blueprint.
MAJOR AREAS IN NANOBIOTECHNOLOGY. One regarding the strategic objectives of nanotechnology is the development of new fabrics possessing nanometer sizes which have entirely new physical properties with respect to bulk processes and, therefore, new functionalities. The primary scientific question which should be asked regarding nano concept is: what new properties or behavior we can expect from nanomaterials which they do not have in a larger volume scale. There exists many examples of nanomaterials which indeed demonstrate unusual and frequently unexpected properties: metal nanoparticles, carbon nanostructures, semiconductor quantum dots or nanocrystals etc. At first sight, one may wait for the interface between silicon and oxygen to be no higher than a simple oxidation process resulting in formation of SiO2.
However, we discovered that, at the nanoscale, the interaction becomes many more subtle, interesting and handy. In this review we should like to explain on the property of Si nanostructures to act as facilitators for indirect photoexcitation of adsorbed molecules via; life transfer from electronic excitations confined in Si nanocrystals excitons to surrounding molecules. The photo excitation mechanism is likely to be universally applicable to a large section of other inorganic and organic molecules. Nanomedicine- Biomedical Application of Nanotechnology. While primary advancement was achieved in recent years, technological medicine is limited by most its knowledge and its treatment tools.
It is only within the final 50 yr that medicine has started seeing at diseases at the molecular level, and today's drugs are thus fundamentally single-effect molecules. The probable force of nanotechnology on medicine stems directly from the dimension regarding the devices and fabrics that can interact directly with cells and tissues at a molecular level. On first sight, nanomedicine is the rather more well-defined application of nanotechnology within the parts of healthcare and sickness diagnosis and treatment. But here, too, one encounters a bewildering array of programmes and projects. Artificial bone implants already benefit from nanotechnologically improved materials.
Nanostructured surfaces can deliver as scaffolding for controlled tissue-growth. Applied nanobiotechnology in medicine is in its infancy. However, the breadth of current nanomedicine studies is extraordinary. It includes 3 primary studies areas: diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and prosthesis and implants. Nowadays, nanomedicine is one regarding the leading and foremost fields of nanobiotechnology.
An assessment of biological processes to computers demonstrated that most process details that is stored in a sequence of symbols taken from an unchanging alphabet, and most operate in a stepwise fashion. In recent years, immense interest has arisen amid researchers on developing new computers inspired from biological systems. Performing calculations employing biomolecules and creating use of genetic engineering cutting edge designs shall soon locate use like a tool for computation. The greatest promise of biological computers is that they can operate in biochemical environments. Biological Studies at the Nanoscale.
The introduction of studies tools at the nanolevel and nanomanipulation techniques stemming from the fabric world has initiated an unique paradigm of biomolecular research. Living organisms and biomolecules are distant more multifaceted than engineered materials. Within the final little decades, studies has focused on the connection between structure, mechanical response, and biological function at the macro- and microlevels. Nanoresearch tools are capable of analyzing and visualizing properties of lone molecules, thereby providing the opportunity to examine bio-processes of lone cells and molecular motors. Nanoelectronics and DNA-Based Nanotechnology.
DNA-based nanotechnology is essential to all regarding the nanotechnological approaches mentioned thus far. An escalating many scientists within nanoscience are creating use of nucleic acids as building blocks within the bottom-up fabrication approach sequential to make novel structures and devices. The simple drive of this application is the well established DNA double helical structure by Watson-Crick hybridization of complementary nucleic-acid strands. This force was shown to be efficient within the construction of nanodevices, nanomachines, DNA-based nanoassemblies, DNAprotein conjugated structures, and DNA-based computation. Biomimetics, Biotemplating, and De Novo-Designed Structures.
One regarding the central goals of nanobiotechnology is the creation and creation of novel fabrics on the nanoscale. Biomolecules, through their unique and specific interaction with other biomolecules and inorganic molecules, natively manage complexed structures at the tissue and organ levels. With recent progress in nanoscale engineering and manipulation, along with developments in molecular biology and biomolecular structures, biomimetics and de novo drafted structures are entering the molecular level. The promise in biomimetics and biotemplating lies within the potential use of inorganic surface-specific proteins for controlled fabric assembly in vivo or in vitro. Patterned arrays of biomolecules, for example DNA, proteins, viruses, and cells, have been utilized as powerful tools in an alternate categories of biological studies.
Microarrays, in particular, have led to significant advances in many parts of health related and biological research, opening up avenues for the combinatorial screening and identification of single-nucleotide polymorphisms SNPs, high-sensitivity expression profiling of proteins, and high-throughput analysis of protein function. Together with the advent of powerful new nanolithographic methods, for example dip-pen nanolithography DPN, there is now the possibility of reducing the feature volume in such arrays to their physical limit, the volume regarding the structures from which they can be created of, and the volume regarding the structures they can be intended to interrogate. Such massive miniaturization not only allows one to increase the density of combinatorial libraries, to increase the sensitivity of such structures within the context of a biodiagnostic event, and to reduce the compulsory sample analyte volume, but also to carry out studies that are not likely together with the more conventional microarray format. Arrays with features on the nanometer-length scale reveal up the opportunity to learn many biological structures at the lone particle level. Such features should be used to immobilize and orient lone virus particles and to learn many important processes for example cell infectivity and virus proliferation and transmission.
These miniaturized features let one to contemplate the creation regarding the equivalent of an entire combinatorial library e. , a gene chip or complex protein array underneath a lone cell, thus opening new possibilities for the learn of important fundamental, multivalent, processes for example cell-surface recognition, adhesion, differentiation, growth, proliferation, and apoptosis. Nanomotors? Biological Nanomotors. The increase in cell volume that characterizes eukaryotic cells was accompanied by the elaboration of molecular machineries that stabilize cell shape, power cell movement, secure segregation regarding the genetic material, and deliver goods to specific destinations within the cell. These tasks are accomplished by a special class of machines termed molecular motors'', which use polymers of 3 classes of cytoskeletal fiber as tracks on which to move: i microfilaments composed of actin subunits; and ii microtubules created from tubulin dimers.
Whereas relatives of these cytoskeletal polymers already shape component regarding the prokaryotic make-up, motors apparently are novel inventions regarding the eukaryotic cell. 3 classes of these linear molecular motors are known to date myosins, which use actin filaments as tracks; and kinesins and dyneins, which move on microtubules. For almost a century, myosin from skeletal muscle was the only protein known to be involved in force generation and movement, but it was joined in 1965 by dynein, an ATPase present in flagella and cilia. Many biologists at the time probably were barely happy together with the view of one motor myosin being responsible for cytoplasmic movements, and a 2nd dynein for ciliary and flagellar beating. However, many cellular movements should not clearly be associated with neither myosin or dynein, and this eventually led to discovery of an unique kind of cytoplasmic motor, kinesin, in 1985.
With respect to different motor categories, this seemed to be the end regarding the line, but subsequently distant complexity arose within each group. A combination of biochemical, molecular genetic and genomic approaches revealed that each regarding the 3 motor classes comprises superfamilies of motors of strikingly varied make-up and function. Today, we can distinguish at fewest 24 different classes of myosins, 14 different families of kinesins, and 3 groups of dyneins axonemal and cytoplasmic. CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE TRENDS. Nanobiotechnology is still within the premature stages of growth; nevertheless, its development is multidirectional and fast-paced.
Nanobiotechnology studies centers are being established and supported at an elevated occurrence, and the numbers of papers and patent applications shall also be rising rapidly. In addition, the nanobiotechnology tool crate is being speedily packed with new and practical tools for bio-nanomanipulations that shall accelerate novel applications. Like a final point, an analysis regarding the total investment in nanobiotechnology start-ups exposed that nearly 50% regarding the venture capital investments in nanotechnology is addressed to nanobiotechnology. One regarding the strongest driving forces in this studies region is the semiconductor industry. Computer chips are quickly shrinking regarding to Moore's law, i.
, by a factor of 4 every 4 yr. However, this simple shrinking law cannot continue for many longer, and computer scientists are that is why seeing for solutions. One approach is moving to single-molecule transistors. This shift is critically dependent on molecular nanomanipulations to shape molecular computation that shall write, process, store, and view details within the lone molecule where proteins and DNA are some regarding the alternatives. As health related studies and diagnostics steadily progresses based on the use of molecular biomarkers and specific therapies aimed at molecular markers and multiplexed analysis, the necessity for molecular-level devices increases.
Technology platforms that are reliable, rapid, low-cost, portable, and that can handle huge quantities are evolving and shall give the future foundation for personalized medicine. These new technologies are mostly important in cases of early detection, for example in cancer. Future applications of nanobiotechnology shall probably with nanosized devices and sensors that shall be injected into, or ingested by, our bodies. These instruments should be used as indicators for the transmission of details outside of our bodies or they should actively perform repairs or maintenance. Nanotechnology-based platforms shall secure the future realization of multiple goals in biomarker analysis.
Examples for such platforms are the use of cantilevers, nanomechanical processes NEMS, nanoelectronics biologically gated nanowire, and nanoparticles in diagnostics imaging and therapy. The art of nanomanipulating fabrics and biosystems is converging with details technology, medicine, and computer sciences to make entirely new science and cutting edge designs platforms. These technologies shall with imaging diagnostics, genome pharmaceutics, biosystems on a chip, regenerative medicine, on-line multiplexed diagnostics, and food systems. It is simple that biology has many to release the physical world in demonstrating how to recognize, organize, functionalize, and assemble new fabrics and devices. In fact, almost any device, tool, or active system known currently should be neither mimicked by biological processes or constructed creating use of techniques originating within the bio-world.
Therefore, it is plausible that within the future, biological processes shall be used as building blocks for the construction regarding the fabric and mechanical fabric of our daily lives. Current status of nanotechnology approaches for cardiovascular disease. Nanotechnology is poised to have an increasing impact on cardiovascular well-being in coming years. Diagnostically, multiplexed point-of-care devices shall enable rapid genotyping and biomarker measurement to optimize and tailor therapies for the lone patient. Nanoparticle-based molecular imaging agents shall take advantage of targeted agents to give increased insight into sickness pathways rather then basically providing structural and functional information.
Drug delivery shall be impacted by targeting of nanoparticle-encapsulated drugs to location of action, increasing the effective concentration and decreasing systemic dosage and side effects. Controlled and tailored release of drugs from polymers shall improve manage of pharmacokinetics and bioavailability. The application of nanotechnology. to tissue engineering shall facilitate the fabrication of better tissue implants in vitro, and give scaffolds to promote regeneration in vivo receiving advantageof the body's own repair mechanisms. Health related devices shall benefit from thedevelopment of nanostructured surfaces and coatings to give better controlof thrombogenicity and infection.
Taken together, these new technologies haveenormous potential for improving the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovasculardiseases. Nanoscale imaging of microbial pathogens creating use of atomic force microscopy. The nanoscale exploration of microbes creating use of atomic force microscopy AFM is an exciting studies field that has expanded rapidly within the past years. Creating use of AFM topographic imaging, investigators can visualize the surface structure of live cells below physiological conditions and with unprecedented resolution. In doing so, the effect of drugs and chemicals on the fine cell surface architecture should be monitored.
Real-time imaging offers a means to follow dynamic events for example cell growth and division. In parallel, chemical force microscopy CFM, in which AFM points aremodified with specific functional groups, allows researchers to measure interaction forces, for example hydrophobic forces, and to resolve nanoscale chemical heterogeneities on cells, on a scale of only 25 functional groups. Lastly, molecular recognition imaging creating use of spatially resolved force spectroscopy, dynamic recognition imaging or immunogold detection, enables microscopists to localize specific receptors, for example cell adhesion proteins or antibiotic binding sites. These noninvasive nanoscale analyses give new avenues in pathogenesis research, particularly for investigating the action mode of antimicrobial drugs, and for elucidating the molecular basis of pathogenhost interactions. Commercialization of nanotechnology.
The emerging and potential commercial applications of nanotechnologies clearly have good potential to significantly advance and even potentially revolutionize different aspects of health related practice and health related product development. Nanotechnology is already touching uponmany aspects of medicine, within drug delivery, diagnostic imaging, clinical diagnostics, nanomedicines, and the use of nanomaterials in health related devices. This cutting edge designs is already possessing an impact; many products are on the market and a growing no. is within the pipeline. Momentum is steadily building for the successful development of more nanotech products to diagnose and treat disease; the highest many active parts of product development are drug delivery and in vivo imaging.
Nanotechnology shall also be addressing many unmet wants within the pharmaceutical industry, within the reformulation of drugs to improve their bioavailability or toxicity profiles. The advancement of health related nanotechnology is expected to advance over at fewest 3 different generations or phases, beginning together with the introduction of simple nanoparticulate and nanostructural improvements to current product and process types, then eventually moving on to nanoproducts and nanodevices that are limited only by the imagination and. limits regarding the cutting edge designs itself. This review looks at some recent developments within the commercialization of nanotechnology for different health related applications as well as general trends within the industry, and explores the nanotechnology business that is involved in developing health related products and procedures with a view toward cutting edge designs commercialization. Nanostructured polymer scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
The structural features of tissue engineering scaffolds affect cell response and should be engineered to help cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. The scaffold acts as an interim synthetic extracellular matrix ECM that cells interact with prior to forming an unique tissue. In this review, bone tissue engineering is used as the primary example for the sake of brevity. We focus on nanofibrous scaffolds and the incorporation of other components within other nanofeatures into the scaffold structure. Since the ECM is comprised in huge component of collagen fibers, between 50 and 500nmin diameter, well-designed nanofibrous scaffoldsmimic this structure.
Our team has developed a novel thermally induced phase separation TIPS process in which a solution of biodegradable polymer is cast into a porous scaffold, resulting in a nanofibrous pore-wall structure. These nanoscale fibers hold a diameter 50500 nm comparable to those collagen fibers located within the ECM. This process can then be combined with a porogen leaching technique, also developed by our group, to engineer an interconnected pore structure that promotes cell migration and tissue ingrowth in 3 dimensions. To improve upon efforts to incorporate a ceramic component into polymer scaffolds by mixing, our team has also developed a technique where apatite crystals are grown onto biodegradable polymer scaffolds by soaking them in simulated body fluid SBF. By changing the polymer used, the concentration of ions within the SBF and by varying the treatment time, the volume and distribution of these crystals are varied.
Work is currently being done to improve the distribution of these crystals throughout three-dimensional scaffolds and to make nanoscale apatite deposits that better mimic those located within the ECM. In most nanofibrous and composite scaffolds, cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation improved when compared to manage scaffolds. Additionally, composite scaffolds showed a decrease in incidence of apoptosis when compared to polymer manage in bone tissue engineering. Nanoparticles have been integrated into the nanostructured scaffolds to deliver biologically active molecules for example growth and differentiation factors to regulate cell behavior for optimal tissue regeneration. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Bionanotechnology carries with it a grave responsibility. As with any technology, the potential for misuse is enormous. We have seen within the past multiple decades an explosion of cutting edge designs at all levelsmachinery, electronics, information, and biology. Many people have reservations about this fast pace. Some are discouraged by the compulsion toward novelty.
Many scientists and engineers explore new technologies basically due to the fact that they can be possible, without spending the time to ponder regarding the implications and consequences. Also, many new technologies are the domains of experts and huge corporations, which should be pursuing developments for personal motives that do not reflect goals that greatest benefit humanity or the global environment. The governments of many countries are becoming increasingly aware regarding the reservations of their populace and are enacting regulations to manage the more controversial applications, for example person cloning and embryonic stem cell research. But, of course, it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between morally acceptable cutting edge designs and applications that are morally reprehensible. As we decide where to draw our own personal line, we may ponder carefully about 3 topics: the respect for life and likely dangers.
The potential dangers of nanotechnology are a best topic in current science fiction. In particular, the concept regarding the rogue disassembler or assembler was widely discussed, most in fiction and by speculative scientists. We have abundant precedents for how to proceed and warnings of how not to proceed from other technologies that pose dangers when used improperly. These with regulations on studies in nuclear science and viral studies that should be applied to sensitive applications in bionanotechnology. Addressing potential dangers can lead to more moral complications.
Take, for instance, the incorporation of terminator genes into genetically modified seeds that make them sterile and productive only for a lone generation. Consequently this gives a ready solution to likely spread regarding the engineered plant, it was criticized like a method to make sure that continued sales, as farmers shall need new seed for each year's crop. This gives a significant hardship for farmers in developing countries, where seed is typically saved from one season to next, despite the fact that this is the market many times advertised as the primary winners for these modified crops. On a more familiar level, one is faced together with the question regarding the need for intervention. Just due to the fact that we hold a technology, we are not obligated to useparticular, gives immediate moral problems.
The genetic engineering of children, particularly for cosmetic reasons or to improve native ability, raises severe problems for most people, creating use of the argument that babies are not commodities to be picked and sorted through on the department save shelf. However, the ability to remove hereditary diseases, permanently and for all successive generations, has an undeniable appeal. Of course, this dilemma is not, at its heart, anything new. For centuries, agriculture and medicine have modified biology in profound ways. By selective breeding, we have changed livestock, grains, flowers, dogs, cats, and countless other organisms into grossly different shapes to give more food and to please our senses.
To our own bodies, we sum substances to change blood pressure, to fight microorganisms, to relieve pain, and thus extend our life span by decades. Perhaps, in a little decades, the advances of nanotechnology shall look as familiar like a hybrid tea rose. Stochastic computing with biomolecular automata. USA 2004;101:99609965. Nano-tailoring; stitching alterations on viral coats.
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