Millions of people die every day from all different types of cancer: lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer... In most cases, if cancer was detected in its earlier stages, it would be treatable. Nanotechnology has made detecting and then treating cancer in its earliest stages possible.
Recent advances in nanotechnology have led to the possibility of seeking and destroying tumor cells within the human body! In fact, nanotechnology has become so advanced that scientists today can destroy a tumor cell with minimum harm to the tissues around it. In addition, the use of nanoscience through polymerical micelles has become a source for anti-tumor drug delivery. The exploration of the many possibilities of nanotechnology can only be beneficial.
Quantum Dots, known as QD's, have been used to image cancer cells in the past. With the completion of the Human Genome Sequence, scientists have been able to tell a cancerous cell from a healthy cell. Quantum Dots range from 1 nanometer, which is a billionth of a meter, to 10 nanometers, to 100 nanometers.
Fluorescent Quantum Dots, depending on their size, are excited at appropriate wavelengths, which cause them to emit different colored lights. Smaller Quantum Dots emit smaller wavelengths than larger dots, which means they also emit different colors. If Quantum Dots of many different sizes are deposited into your body and each dot produces a different color, your body would emit in a multi-colored fluorescent glow, which can depict, with colors, cancerous cells and tumors.
This array of colors can provide a detailed picture at molecular and cellular levels. Having a picture at this extremely small level could provide images of which cells are cancerous, and those cancerous tissues can be removed through surgery, or other methods in the fields of nanotechnology.
Other advantages of using Quantum dots are that the intensity of the signal sent out by the dots are more intense, the signal to noise ratio is higher, and the stability of the dots is better than regular fluorescent molecules.
In fact, the Quantum Dots are so stable that a single cell could be followed throughout the body for days, or even weeks! (Kawasaki & Player, 2005) Having a picture at this extremely small level could provide images of which cells are cancerous, and those cancerous tissues can be removed through surgery, or another method of nanotechnology.
Quantum Dots have been also beginning to be used to “seek out and destroy” tumor and cancerous prostate cancer cells. (Wood, 2004) Quantum Dots are encapsulated in a protective coat, which prevents degradation within the body. (Wood, 2004) Experiments have been done on mice, showing that a Quantum Dot can effectively locate tumor cells. Inside this miniscule Quantum Dot there is an antibody to fight off cancer.
The Quantum Dot's can enter through the blood stream and the antibody within the independently dot searches out where the tumor is. When the tumor is found, the Quantum Dot produces a laser light which sinks deep into the tissue. (Wood, 2004) Then, the shell of the dot, which peaks in absorption near infrared converts the laser light it absorbs into heat destroying the tumor cells around it.
In other words, when a QD locates a tumor, it emits a laser light, and that light energy given off by the QD is absorbed by the shell of the dot, which is converted into heat energy, destroying tumor cells around it. Scientists suggest that this operation can be performed on human body tissues, where surgery of the tumor cannot be done.
This new-found technique has greatly encouraged the rise of nanotechnology which can be used to remove tumors without a surgical procedure. As you can see, advances in nanotechnology can give not only doctors an easier way to “take out” a tumor, but it would give the patient a much more painless option, one without knives and scars.
As scientists across the globe carefully study anti-tumor drugs, they begin to think about what the best way to distribute the drug throughout the body. This answer lies, too, in nanotechnology. Over the past few years, scientists have been exploring the world of polymeric micelles, which some believe are the future of drug distribution.
Obviously, nanotechnology is not only advancing in the field of fighting off and tracking down cancer, but it has also reached the point where new forms of drug delivery and release are feasible.
Today, scientists use long-circulating liposomes to deliver drugs. Polymeric micelles have several advantages over these long-circulating liposomes, which are currently one of the best ways of delivering a drug.
Polymeric micelles have more controlled drug release, tissue penetrating ability, and reduced toxicity.
Nanotechnology has opened so many more doors for the human race, and I it will continue to do so with more research and new inventions. Already, nanoscience has been able to find tumors, distribute drugs, and even provide pictures of cells at the molecular and cellular level!
Recent advances have even made destroying those tumors possible. If nanotechnology can do this much in just a few years, just image, in the course of just a few decades, what nanotechnology could do for not only Americans, but the entire world.
