By Zack Medicoff

When we first think of nanotechnology and medicine, many of us wax nostalgic about science fiction stories like Fantastic Voyage.

The late ’60s classic suggested that micro-sized “anatomynaughts” could be injected into a dying man to repair his brain. While novelist Isaac Asimov got the specifics wrong — today there are no plans to shrink humans to such tiny proportions — the idea of using miniscule agents inside bodies is very much a modern-day goal.

Douglas Mulhall, author of Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World, suggests the first successes in the medical field will involve rebuilding specific parts of the human body.

For example, Mulhall points to the process of printing artificial skin on three-dimensional printers. “Printers are now being injected with self-assembling materials that can actually grow human tissue,” he said from his Barbados office. “Skin is being sprayed by ink jet printers onto surfaces. Then it grows.”

Mulhall imagines a world where people can enjoy increased intelligence, enhanced vision and no wrinkles, as well as a host of anti-ageing solutions. And if growing skin is not really what people imagine as the future of medicine, Mulhall points out that technology is advancing more quickly than most dreamed. In fact, his Web site lists many developments that have surfaced since the 2002 publication of his book, including:

¦ Computing that has sped up a thousand fold. A technology called optical processing has been used to manufacture devices that can perform up to eight trillion operations per second.

¦ Cheap diamonds. The formerly precious stones may soon run computers cheaply and at far faster and cooler rates.

Manufacturing of diamonds that are indistinguishable from the real thing has already begun.

¦ Microscopic computers are being implanted in the eye and connected to the brain to restore sight.

¦ Super-fabrics many times stronger than conventional materials have been developed. These could be used to construct buildings that withstand hurricane and floods.

¦ Those same materials make possible lightweight body armour that lets everyone — from soldiers to senior citizens — enhance their mobility and guard against injury.

¦ Scientists have decoded the DNA of the malaria parasite and the mosquito that spreads it, opening the door to a vaccine against the disease that kills more than two million annually and sickens tens of millions more.

Mulhall lists additional innovations on his Web site.

He also said that nanomedicine will eventually see the use of internal robots. “The real revolution is that not only are computers becoming intelligent, we’re implanting these forms of increased intelligence in ourselves. Nanomedicine is now that pathway.”

He cautioned, though, that this is still far away. “Most people are being told that nanotechnology consists of these molecular-sized mechanical machines running around the blood. That is not going to happen first.”

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
At this point, however, nanotech raises more questions than it answers, according to Tom Keenan, a professor and researcher at the University of Calgary. While it is plausible that little robots will cruise around in human bloodstreams and, for example, scrape plaque from artery walls, no one yet knows how the little do-gooders will operate.

“They’re going to have to be intelligent. But how do you make them intelligent, would they have to be intrinsically intelligent or controlled from the outside?

And if they’re controlled externally, who controls them?”

But when these issues are settled, Keenan said one of the best uses for the technology will be in preventing illness in the first place. For example, tiny robots could sound the alert when they detect pre-cancerous cells.

“We’re going to see medical diagnostics of nanotechnology quite quickly. That will soon be followed by some treatment methodology, where we can intervene with the cells as they are becoming carcinogenic.”

Keenan also said nanotechnology could be used to build synthetic bone and tissue, and speculated there will also be military applications.

“There’s a real project they’re working on: a suit that’s an exoskeleton. If a soldier gets shot, the suit detects and stops the bullet as well as takes in the force.”

SMALL-SCALE BENEFITS
Nanotechnology could also help solve some very specific problems, said Neil Theise, a stem cell researcher and doctor of pathology at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He hasn’t applied nanotechnology in his practice but he recognizes its potential.

“I [don’t expect] huge advances in nanomedicine just yet. However, nanotechnology systems [could] highlight cells or processes of interest in an animal or human, and could give us a lot more information about how the body works.”

For example, Theise said it’s very difficult to unblock areas that drain the liver, particularly in cancer patients.

“We’re talking about microscopic areas, places where we can’t get an endoscope to reach. If we figure out a way to create a mechanical device to crawl up there and do diagnostics and bring back information on the biochemical environment, malignant cells, or even open an area of scar — that is very sexy and exciting.

“I think we’ll regard this era as when the groundwork was being laid and the fanciful ideas were generated to create workable targets. In terms of making therapeutic interventions (with nanotechnology), I suspect that’s decades away. But we’re already there in terms of visualizing and manipulating molecules on nano levels.”

Like all technologies, though, there are other implications to consider. Keenan points to privacy issues and identify theft, along with the concept of the nanohacker. “Let’s say we have these little diagnostic nanobots put in us. We walk unsuspectingly next to a coffee shop that has a sensor and it reads our medical status. The insurance company may not want to cover you because you drink too much coffee,” he said.

“Somebody might misuse the information and if they have control of these small robots, it’s gong to be a very interesting situation.”

Even so, there are big dollars at stake, according to Robert A. Freitas Jr., an author and research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Los Altos, Calif. It will be 20 to 30 years before nanomedicine comes to fruition, he said, but when it does it’s a potential trillion dollar industry. That includes eradicating infectious cells on a molecular level and extending life expectancy.

“(Because of nanomedicine) death will be caused almost exclusively by accidents, wars, homicides and suicides. There will be no medically caused causes of death like
heart attacks, diabetes and other diseases.

How many people do you think would pay for long life?

“It’ll be about $1,000 a year for a dose to completely extend your life and it’ll be accessible to people, not just society’s rich.

Nanomedicine is going to totally take over healthcare in the 21st century.”

Web nanotech
Douglas Mulhall http://www.ourmolecularfuture.com
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://www.imm.org