What happens when nano meets bio
A very rich interface exists between nanotechnology and biotechnology; we will explore what happened when nano met bio.
Biotechnology, contrary to common belief, is ancient in its origins. Nearly 10,000 years ago, our ancestors were using microorganisms to ferment grains and grapes to produce wine, beer, cheese and bread, and crossbreeding plants and animals to improve agricultural yield. Unknown to them, they were the first practitioners of biotechnology because they were using living organisms or their products to modify human health, food production and the human environment. Modern biotechnology came about when, in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double stranded helix of DNA: a very large nano molecule made up of only four bases that, as they postulated, contained the code of life.
Since then, scientists have learned to read this code and to manipulate and alter it to produce new organisms and bioactive molecules at will through the science of genetic engineering. The new field of genetic engineering has generated new industries that, by inserting the required genes at the appropriate site in the DNA, can produce new plants and animals with the desired characteristics to increase the yield of agriculture, or to mass produce insulin for diabetics.
By the beginning of this century, the complete library of the human genome had been codified, permitting medicine to start treating diseases at its genetic roots. The genes express themselves through their proteins, the building blocks of life. Proteins have a broad span of sizes, but the ones that have the greatest impact on health, such as enzymes and hormones, have sizes of the order of hundred nanometers the scale of nano particles. Thus, it should not be a surprise that when nano met bio they discovered that they could interact, since they talked the same language, the language of molecules; it was love at first sight.
A recent innovation in nano science will serve to illustrate the power of the incipient field of nanobio. Nanotechnologists have developed a nano scale electrochemical device that generates electric power like a battery, but that draws its power from blood glucose, in a similar manner that the body generates energy from food. It could be said that nano learned from bio the science of energy production. The technological implications of this new nano device are immense; for example such devices could power other devises embedded in the body like pacemakers, or actually sugar-fed nanorobots to repair damage tissue or remove malfunctioning cells. Once this technology is perfected medicine will never be the same.
The biggest lesson that bio has taught nano is the technique of self-assembly. The very essence of life is based on this concept; starting with the genetic code and the resulting finite number of proteins that it encodes, as building blocks, nature assembles or fabricates the magnificent complex edifice that we call the living cell, the unit of life. Initially nanotechnologists were following a top-down approach to fabricate complex nanostructures using nanolithography, which they adapted from the manufacturers of microchips the heart of the modern computer. Learning from nature they are now increasingly using the bottom-up approach to self assemble exquisitely complex nano circuits, bionano sensors and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). As a result, it is no longer in the realm of science fiction, that nanorobots will enter the blood stream to destroy cancerous cells or to carry nano biosensors to detect disease in its early stages. The University of Puerto Rico's Institute for Functional Nanomaterials (IFN) has entered into a strategic alliance with the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to develop self assembled nano devices in the area of nanobio. The self assembly will be guided by the scaffolds provided by polymeric nanomaterials, the strength of UMass, and by hard nanomaterials to provide the active components of the device, the strength of the IFN.
The IFN is already exploiting the capacity of nano particles to enter the human body and act as a precise missile that will target cancer cells with an unheard degree of specificity. Two IFN scientists have fabricated magnetic nano particles and functionalized them by attaching the appropriate proteins or genetic materials, that will permit them to adhere themselves only to specific cancer cells. Then using magnetic fields to activate the magnetic nano particle they will kill the cell by localized heating. In contraposition to radio or chemo therapy that destroy cancer as well as healthy cells, this novel approach will only destroy the cancer cells. At the same time the magnetic naon particles will also serve as MRI contrast agents to detect even a few cancerous cells, long before the more traditional approaches can detect a malignant tumor. This technique is still at the research stage.
Nanotechnology has opened a new world for biosensors and biomarkers. The nano biosensors will permit doctors to bypass the traditional clinical lab where they send blood samples to detect disease, and instead obtain pinpoint information at the source of the illness inside the living being. The IFN has develop nano silicon particles that emit high intensity light by the mechanism of fluorescence and have inserted it inside the blood stream of tiny fish to track the blood flow through capillaries. The next stage will be to insert the fluorescent nano particles inside neurons in order to track, in a fish embryo, the enervation of the developing brain. At this point nano may be able to assist bio to unravel the language of proteins and their interaction with the environment that guide the self assembly of complex life.
