Medical Nanorobotics: The Long-Term Goal for Nanomedicine

Nanotechnology involves the engineering of molecularly precise structures and, ultimately, molecular machines. BCC Research [1] estimated the global market for nanotools and nanodevices was $1.5 billion in 2006 and projected to reach $8.6 billion by 2011, rapidly gaining on the slower-growing nanomaterials market, which is estimated at $9.0 billion (2006) and $16.6 billion (2011). As distinct from nanoscale materials and today’s simple nanotools and nanodevices having nanoscale features, molecular nanotechnology encompasses the concept of engineering functional machine systems at the molecular scale—including mechanical systems designed and built to atomic precision. Molecular manufacturing (Section 14.4) would make use of positionally controlled mechanosynthesis (mechanically-mediated chemistry) guided by molecular machine systems to build complex products, including additional nanomachines. Nanomedicine [2, 3] is the application of nanotechnology to medicine: the preservation and improvement of human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body. Nanomedicine encompasses at least three types of molecularly precise structures [4]—nonbiological nanomaterials, biotechnology materials and engineered organisms, and nonbiological devices including diamondoid nanorobotics. In the near term, the molecular tools of nanomedicine will employ biologically active nanomaterials and nanoparticles having well-defined nanoscale features. In the midterm (5–10 years), knowledge gained from genomics and proteomics will make possible new treatments tailored to specific individuals, new drugs targeting pathogens whose genomes have been decoded, and stem cell treatments. Genetic therapies, tissue engineering, and many other offshoots of biotechnology will become more common in therapeutic medical practice. We also may see biological robots derived from bacteria or other motile cells that have had their genomes reengineered and reprogrammed, along with artificial organic devices that incorporate biological motors or self-assembled DNA-based structures for a variety of useful medical purposes. In the farther term (2020s and beyond), the first fruits of medical nanorobotics—the most powerful of the three classes of nanomedicine technology, though clinically the most distant and still mostly theoretical today–should begin to appear in the medical field. Nanotechnologists will learn how to build nanoscale