Bluffer’s guide to nanotechnology
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A charmingly British academic video explaining the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of nanotechnology
It’s small and it has a new properties. That about sums up what is nano-technology; well not exactly.
However if you want to get in on the ground floor and understand how academics see it, this short video is the place.
Clive Roberts at the University of Nottingham gives a rather good presentation, while walking through his university’s labs showing off his nano-detecting kit and describing what the research entails.
You might call it typically endearing piece of British filmwork, as one person commented “that cameraman rocks. Err no, really”.
No whizz-bangery here, even the kit looks like someone had a good rummage at a Dr Who car-boot sale, but the facts are there and Roberts is good.
nottinghamscience — April 15, 2008 — A nano-tech tour with Clive Roberts from the University of Nottingham. More at http://www.test-tube.org.uk/
Clive Roberts tells about nanotechnology helping in drug delivery processes. This sounds really amazing, especially with the possibilities it would give when we keep in mind the opportunity to actually control those drugs, where and when we release drug payloads. This article explains one of the possibilities nanotechnology gives in medicine:
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2931
“Using tiny gold particles and infrared light, MIT researchers have developed a drug-delivery system that allows multiple drugs to be released in a controlled fashion.
Such a system could one day be used to provide more control when battling diseases commonly treated with more than one drug, according to the researchers.[…]
Delivery devices already exist that can release two drugs, but the timing of the release must be built into the device — it cannot be controlled from outside the body. The new system is controlled externally and theoretically could deliver up to three or four drugs.
The new technique takes advantage of the fact that when gold nanoparticles are exposed to infrared light, they melt and release drug payloads attached to their surfaces.[…]
The team built two different shapes of nanoparticles, which they call “nanobones” and “nanocapsules.” Nanobones melt at light wavelengths of 1,100 nanometers, and nanocapsules at 800 nanometers.”
It’s really amazing, and what is even more encouraging, gives hope to people, for example with AIDS or all sorts of cancer. Are there any case studies of people treated with nanotech changed drugs so far? Any successful therapies, or predicted dates to introduce these kind of medicaments to market?