The Pros And Cons Of Nanotechnology

1434 Words3 Pages

WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY The National Nanotechnology Initiative defines nanotechnology as “science, engineering, and technology conducted at a nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.” In a calculative sense, there are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch and a sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, putting that into perspective, if a marble were a nanometer, a meter would be the size of the Earth. Due to the miniscule size of the work of nanotechnology, it can be used throughout all fields of science, including chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering to study and apply microscopic objects and abstractions.
Physicist Richard Feynman introduced the concepts of nanoscience …show more content…

Unfortunately, due to nonspecific targeting by anticancer agents, many side effects occur and poor drug delivery of those agents cannot bring out the desired outcome in most of the cases. “The main challenge of cancer therapeutics is to differentiate the cancerous cells and the normal body cells” (Bharali). Conventional chemotherapy fails to target the cancerous cells selectively without interacting with the normal body cells. Thus, they cause serious side effects, including organ damage resulting in impaired treatment with a lower dose and ultimately low survival …show more content…

“Top 5 Advances in Medical Technology.” ASME.org, Mar. 2016, www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/bioengineering/top-5-advances-medical-technology.
“Nanotechnology in Cancer Treatment.” Nanotechnology in Cancer Treatment, 2016 Hawk's Perch Technical Writing, LLC, www.understandingnano.com/cancer-treatment-nanotechnology.html.
Ouellette, Jennifer. “Scientists Build Tiny Microcannons That Fire Drug-Filled Nanobullets.”Gizmodo, Gizmodo.com, 6 Jan. 2016, gizmodo.com/scientists-build-tiny-microcannons-that-fire-drug-fille-1751172846.
Palma, Matteo. “From Living Computers to Nano-Robots: How We're Taking DNA beyond Genetics.” Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology, The Conversation, 7 June 2016, phys.org/news/2016-06-nano-robots-dna-genetics.html.
“Safety of Nanotechnology.” National Cancer Institute, www.cancer.gov/sites/ocnr/cancer-nanotechnology/safety.
S. A. Mousa and D. J. Bharali, “Nanotechnology-based detection and targeted therapy in cancer: nano-bio paradigms and applications,” Cancers, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 2888–2903, 2011.
Sutradhar, Kumar Bishwajit, and Md. Lutful Amin. “Nanotechnology in Cancer Drug Delivery and Selective Targeting.” International Scholarly Research Notices, Hindawi, 16 Jan. 2014,

Open Document