Convergence of Bio- and Nanotechnology

Two of the most exciting new fields today are biotechnology and nanotechnology as evidenced by new university degrees being offered and heightened funding worldwide. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the convergence of these two remarkable technical areas in terms of their impact on one another.

Impact of Nano on Bio: Radical New Advances in the Health Sciences

New Medical Tools

The incredible ability of medical doctors to remediate patients depends not only on their in-depth knowledge of physiology but, equally, on the tools at their disposal. As in the computer industry, these tools have undergone significant miniaturization, from the macroscopic to the nanometer scale. For example, micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS, are finding new applications as biosensors and biomanipulators and similar technology has resulted in genetic and proteomic microarrays, biomicrofluidics and lab-on-a-chip devices. Advances in microscopy such as the scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopes (STM/AFM) have enabled studies of biological organisms and phenomena at unprecedented levels of detail.

Thus far, these advances have been focused on the rapid characterization of a patient’s health status but our ability to not only characterize but also actively correct physical ailments through nanotechnology is at hand. For example, targeted pharmaceutical delivery to cancer cells will ensure that less drug molecules are required, reducing the potential for adverse side effects. This has already being achieved using quantum dots. Molecular machinery (see below) will enable us to dismantle tumour cells, repair damaged cells and organs and encapsulate pathogens such as viruses for subsequent removal.

New Biomaterials—Artificial Bones and Organs

Nanotechnology, being an advanced branch of materials science, is providing significant insights and benefits in the area of prosthetics and artificial organs. By leveraging our knowledge of matter at the atomic scale and thereby building new molecular architectures we can design biomaterials with enhanced properties and improved performance. These new biomaterials will both shorten time of recovery and, in the instance that conventional organ donors are unavailable, save lives.

Impact of Bio on Nano: New environmentally friendly, adaptive, reconfigurable and smart material systems for commercial products and infrastructure

Biomimetics—Inspirations from Nature

The wide diversity of biological phenomena has inspired engineers for millenia. As early as 3,000 years ago, the Chinese attempted to make artificial versions of spider silk because of its incredible tensile and adhesive properties. However, it is only with the discovery of carbon nanotubes (1991) and our ability to make strands thereof (2003), that this goal has been fully met. Hence, by studying nature and refining our knowledge of the molecular scale, we can design and ultimately provide materials with optimized properties such as being simultaneously lightweight, compact, strong, durable, and, depending on the application, stiff or flexible.

Taking an even wider perspective, we conceptualize a society whose infrastructures (bridges and buildings) and commercial products (vehicles, appliances and furniture) are completely recyclable, environmentally friendly, reconfigurable, actively responsive to the stresses placed on them, and require minimal energy and material resources to fabricate. This complete life cycle approach will render refuse sites a concept of the past and significantly reduce our overall environmental impact. Nature has embodied this ‘ecology of materials’ by designing multifunctional, dynamic molecular building blocks, such as proteins and cells that can be reused in various architectures thus providing different applications. We stand to benefit from doing the same.

Biomachinery—Harnessing Available Components and Systems

Not only can we emulate nature but we can also make creative use of the structures it provides. Protein molecular motors for mobility, cytoskeletons for structural rigidity, and micelles for transport and reaction confinement are all examples of this. We can also employ natural entities such as bacteria cells, which can break down waste polymers, and viruses that can insert DNA to reprogram cells, to accomplish incredible feats at the molecular scale. Remarkably, this transcends organic chemistry: inorganic structures such as CdSe quantum dots, novel crystal structures, and hybrid organic-inorganic materials, such as nacre, have all being synthesized using these nano-bio approaches.