Using nanorobots to
deliver drugs and fight diseases is not a new idea
(check here
or there).
Of course, nanorobots floating inside our bodies to
improve our health are still years away. However, an
international team of American and Australian
researchers is developing a
nanorobot hardware architecture for medical defense
(PDF format, 1.02 MB). They have developed a nanorobot
control design (NCD) software which helps them to
simulate the behavior of these future nanorobots. Their
3-D approach shows 'how nanorobots can effectively
improve health care and medical defense and should
enable innovative real time protection against pandemic
outbreaks.' But read
more...
Let's start with an example, when the influenza virus
start to invade cells. The NCD software shows how "the
bloodstream flows through the vessel in the 3D model.
The vessel endothelial cells denote in brown color the
influenza virus beginning to spread from one cell to
another." (Credit: Cavalcanti et al.)
This second illustration shows "nanorobots detecting
higher concentrations of alpha-NAGA signals within the
bloodstream." (Credit: Cavalcanti et al.) [Note:
"alpha-Nacetylgalactosaminidase (alpha-NAGA) is a
protein identified through the genome mapping, which
belongs to chromosome 22."]
The images above have been created by Adriano
Cavalcanti, the CEO and chairman of the Center for
Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN), who also is
researcher at Monash University in Melbourne. But he was
not alone. He worked with Bijan
Shirinzadeh, an associate professor in the Robotics
and Mechatronics Research Laboratory at Monash
University in Melbourne, Mingjun
Zhang, an associate professor of biomedical
engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
TN, and Luiz
Carlos Kretly, professor of electronics at the State
University of Campinas, Brazil.
This latest research work has been accepted by Sensors,
an open-access scientific journal published monthly by
the Molecular Diversity
Preservation International (MDPI), Basel,
Switzerland. Here is a link to this technical paper, "Nanorobot
Hardware Architecture for Medical Defense" (Volume
8, Issue 5, Pages 2932-2958, May 2008) (PDF format, 27
pages, 1.02 MB) from which the above illustrations have
been extracted.
Here is the beginning of the abstract. "This work
presents a new approach with details on the integrated
platform and hardware architecture for nanorobots
application in epidemic control, which should enable
real time in vivo prognosis of biohazard infection. The
recent developments in the field of nanoelectronics,
with transducers progressively shrinking down to smaller
sizes through nanotechnology and carbon nanotubes, are
expected to result in innovative biomedical
instrumentation possibilities, with new therapies and
efficient diagnosis methodologies. The use of integrated
systems, smart biosensors, and programmable nanodevices
are advancing nanoelectronics, enabling the progressive
research and development of molecular machines."
This is the beginning of the conclusions. "This work
used a 3D approach to show how nanorobots can
effectively improve health care and medical defense.
Nanorobots should enable innovative real time protection
against pandemic outbreaks. The use of nanomechatronics
techniques and computational nanotechnology can help in
the process of transducers investigation and in defining
strategies to integrate nanorobot capabilities. A better
comprehension about the requirements a nanorobot should
address, in order to be successfully used for in vivo
instrumentation, is a key issue for the fast development
of medical nanorobotics."
And here is how nanorobots could be used in fields
such as medicine and defense technology to lead us
towards a safer future. "The use of nanorobots for in
vivo monitoring chemical parameters should significantly
increase fast strategic decisions. Thus, nanorobot for
medical defense means an effective way to avoid an
aggressive pandemic disease to spread into an outbreak.
As a direct impact, it should also help public health
sectors to save lives and decrease high medical costs,
enabling a real time quarantine action."
Before the arrival of real nanorobots, you need to
simulate them. This is the goal of nanorobot prototyping
software. A March 2008 article of Medical Product
Manufacturing News (MPMN), "Software
Provides Peek into the Body -- and the Future"
describes the nanorobot control design (NCD) software,
"a system designed to serve as a test bed for nanorobot
3-D prototyping." .
So what is exactly this NCD platform? It "combines
3-D modeling and virtual reality to enable the design,
simulation, and testing of nanorobots. In a real-time
simulation demonstration, virtual nanorobots were
assigned the task of searching for proteins in a dynamic
environment, and bringing those proteins to a specific
organ inlet for drug delivery. Simulation using 3-D
modeling can provide interactive tools for analyzing
nanorobot design choices, including decisions related to
sensors, architectural design, manufacturing, and
control methodology. Specifically, NCD lets nanorobots
operate inside of a virtual human body in order to
compare control techniques."
Cavalcanti says that "designers will be able to use
the NCD platform for actual nanorobot design prototyping
for specific applications." He also says that "achieving
the goal of functional, feasible nanorobots will be a
three-step process. First, model manufacturing with
carbon nanotube-CMOS biochip integration will have to
occur, followed by in vivo tests, and, finally,
commercialization."
[Disclaimer: I have no financial ties with Adriano
Cavalcanti and his company. For more information -- and
pictures -- about his research, please check his Nanorobotics
Control Design site.]
Sources: Sensors, May 2008; Medical Product
Manufacturing News (MPMN), March 2008; and various
websites
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