By: Tanishtha Nath
What is Nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology has many uses in biology, genetic engineering, drug delivery, agriculture, and cancer treatment. The main focus of this article is going to be the use of nanotechnology for cancer treatments. In simple terms, nanotechnology is using the building blocks of life at the nanoscale and putting it together to produce useful applications; it is also called bionanotechnology. When thinking of the nanoscale, think extremely small– a human hair is 100,000 nanometers wide– because of this, the field of nanotechnology requires a lot of skill and precision.
How is Nanotechnology helpful?
Scientists have long been battling cancer and trying to cure its impact on the human body. Right now there are only a few known methods: chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. These methods are not always effective since they cause damage toward healthy tissue and may not even fully remove the cancer. Nanotechnology can help deliver chemotherapy to a specific target, making it safer and a lot more effective, while also reducing side effects like damage done to surrounding tissues.
Nanotechnology can also help detect a problem like cancer at its smallest stage. Right now, doctors use x-rays, MRIs, and CT scans in order to discover cancer, but for the cancer to show up during these tests it must be big enough. Due to the small size of nanotechnology, it can help identify even the smallest changes in a cell's molecular structure, allowing cancer to be detected at an early stage.
Use of Nanotechnology in healthcare today
There have been two approved treatments in nanotechnology that help chemotherapy work better – Abraxane and Doxil. Abraxane is a nanoparticle that attaches to the chemo drug docetaxel. It is made of the albumin protein and stops cells from dividing. Doxil is another chemo drug that is wrapped inside a fatty sac, and effectively stops cancer cells from dividing.
This isn’t the end of the research in the area of nanotechnology, like every scientific concept there is still more research being done through clinical trials. We urge you to keep an eye on the news and follow any new breakthroughs being made in this field as well as others!
Sources:
Nambiar, Kavya. “5 Applications of Nanotechnology in Biology.” Analytics Steps, https://www.analyticssteps.com/blogs/5-applications-nanotechnology-biology.
“Nanotechnology Cancer Therapy and Treatment.” National Cancer Institute, https://www.cancer.gov/nano/cancer-nanotechnology/treatment.
Watson, Stephanie. “Nanotechnology for Cancer Treatment: Better than X-Rays, CT Scans & Mris.” WebMD, WebMD,
https://www.webmd.com/cancer/guide/nanotechnology-for-cancer.
What Is Bionanotechnology? - Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITtGJUGXFKc.
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