Alongside these economic and practical benefits, other benefits to medicine have been identified, included better understanding of living and thinking systems within the scope of the research itself. For instance, Roco states that this can be seen in the utilisation and application of ‘revolutionary bio-technology processes, the synthesis of new drugs and their targeted delivery, regenerative medicine, neuro-morphic engineering and developing a sustainable environment (337). Nano bio-systems research is a priority in many countries and its relevance within nanotechnology is expected to increase in the future (Roco 337).
It is with these future benefits and potential effects in which the majority of research suggests the effects of nanotechnology can be seen in relation to medicine. Of these future benefits and effects, the potential for facilitating quality of life through the identification of unique behaviours in patterns of virus and disease has been indicated by researchers as being significant. This is primarily because they would otherwise be inaccessible, subject to general categorisations and above all misunderstood or ignored by research.
However, it seems that through identifying these patterns of behaviour in unique constraints, the understanding of molecular processes can be better understood. This has called for the development of new approaches to medicine aimed at enhancing the quality of human life. Expanding upon this exploration of the potential effects of nanotechnology, Emerich et al states that ’a complete list of the potential applications of nanotechnology is too vast and diverse to discuss in detail, but without doubt one of the greatest values of nanotechnology will be in the development of new and effective medical treatments (i.
e. , nano-medicine)’ (655). One area in which the introduction of nanotechnology to the field of medicine and bio-systems can be exemplified is with stem cell research. It has been agreed by many stem cell researchers that stem cells hold a great potential for the treatment of injuries and degenerative diseases. However, they also identify several obstacles that make this potential for treatment difficult to achieve. Essentially, without overcoming these obstacles, the success of the therapeutic application of stem cell research cannot be realized.
These problems were listed by Solanki et al as ‘the development of advanced techniques to understand and control functions of micro-environmental signals and novel methods to track and guide transplanted stem cells. The application of nanotechnology to stem cell biology would be able to address those challenges‘ (567). Further to stem cell research, the treatment of individual illness and early identification has been a concern of the medical world. Essentially, many illnesses can be treated better if the identification of a specific illness can occur earlier on in diagnosis at a sub-symptomatic level.
Likewise, the nature and behaviour of certain potential illnesses in an individual’s body can be deconstructed to understand how it behaves at an atomic level. It has been suggested that the development of medicine in this area can extend to incorporate knowledge of these behaviours with the incorporation of nanotechnology. For instance, Caruthers et al states that: ‘Employing constructs such as dendrimers, liposomes, nanoshells, nanotubes, emulsions and quantum dots, these advances lead toward the concept of personalized medicine and the potential for very early, even pre-symptomatic, diagnoses coupled with highly-effective targeted therapy.
’(Caruthers et al 26) It would appear from these studies that the main effect of nanotechnologies on medicine is in relation to development concerned primarily with detection, diagnostics relating to disease diagnosis and imaging, monitoring, and therapeutics. However, the availability of more durable and better prosthetics, and new drug-delivery systems are also seen as being of great scientific interest.
Logothetidis extends this to suggest that nanotechnology in this area offers real hope to the fields of cancer treatment and minimum invasive treatments for heart disease, diabetes and other diseases. Logothetidis further states that the ‘development of specific guidance documents at a European level for the safety evaluation of nanotechnology products in medicine is strongly recommended and the need for further research in nano-toxicology, is identified. Ethical and moral concerns also need to be addressed in parallel with the new developments‘ (Logothetidis 7).