Nanotechnology is starting to really become an interesting part of medicine today. A recent report indicates that nanobot robots can actually be used to locate cancerous tumors in the body. They are inserted into the body and then essentially ride the bloodstream to the location of the cancer. Not only that, but they actually have the potential to disrupt the tumor’s growth.

The study, completed at the California Institute of Technology, found that small polymer robots could be covered with a protein called transferrin and then inserted into the body to find melanoma tumor cells. The robots could get inside of the tumor cells and use a process called RNA interference to disrupt the growth of the tumors. The next step would be to create nanobots that could actually get in there and shrink the tumors to get rid of the cancer entirely (rather than just stopping it from growing).

This technology is still a ways off in terms of being a reality for the average cancer patient. Additional testing needs to be completed and technology may need to be improved in the future. However, this is a great step for nanotechnology in medicine.

The use of nanotechnology in medicine fascinates me. I think it’s because this is one of those things that I can comprehend at an intellectual level but it just blows my mind to try to understand exactly how it really works. Sure, I can read the scientific explanations of how the technology works but then when I try to think about how someone can build a super-tiny machine and actually make it do things like this … Wow!

Tags: medicine, nano robot, nanobot, nanotechnology