Human bodies to accommodate nano-physicians
December 22, 2007
For those who remember Asimov’s “Fantastic Voyage” the news of nanotravels possibilities inside human bodies should come as old news. For the rest, Roland Piquepaille, on his Emerging Technology Trends blog, elaborates on the use of nanorobots to travel inside human bodies, diagnosing disease and delivering the needed drugs.
“The idea of using nanorobots to deliver drugs and fight diseases such as cancers is not new,” Piquepaille writes. “But there are still lots of issues to solve before nanorobots can diagnose our diseases and treat them.”
Now the use of nanorobots can be tested on a software and hardware platform, designed specifically for these matters by an international team of experts. The researchers expect an operational prototype, which will be able to integrate “nanobioelectronics and proteomics” to travel through human body and be of real medical help, to be ready by 2015. Mass commercialization would be pushed back a bit more, allowing for safety testing.
Picture: Adriano Cavalcanti and colleagues