Latest Concept——Nanomedicine in the 21st Century 2001.4.13

Latest Concept——Nanomedicine in the 21st Century 2001.4.13

Nano is a unit of length, where 1 nm = 1/10⁹ m, roughly the size of an atom. When materials are reduced to this scale, their optical, acoustic, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties differ dramatically from ordinary substances. People can utilize this technology to achieve many practical purposes. As early as the 1980s, researchers developed the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) using nanotechnology, an extraordinary instrument capable of capturing life information at the nanoscale, revealing STM images of left-handed DNA, double-helix DNA, and parallel double-helix DNA. Chinese scientists have recently used STM to successfully capture instantaneous photos of the DNA synthesis process. In summary, nanotechnology is an ultra-microscopic technology. Under ultra-microscopic conditions, people’s ability to store and process information increases by more than a hundredfold, enabling the creation of ultra-miniature machines and materials that operate efficiently at the ultra-microscopic level. For example, the pharmaceutical industry can manufacture drug particles smaller than red blood cells that freely circulate in bodily fluids, exerting unique effects. It is also possible to create artificial kidneys, artificial joints, and artificial hearts, and even directly coat drug particles onto the surface of enzymes and biopeptides to directly control their biological effects. Even simpler applications, such as preparing wound dressings or creating self-cleaning clothing, can exhibit extraordinary effects.