Friday, April 24, 2015

NANOTECHNOLOGY - Medical Industry

Small Brings Big Possibilities


Every year, millions of people die from infectious diseases or non-communicable diseases. Till today, there are still many incurable diseases such as cancer, HIV / Aids, Ebola and diabetes whose cure remains elusive to scientists and medical experts. Will the advances of health and technology in this modern century bring new breakthroughs to the medical world? Is there new hope for humankind?   



Opportunities Presented by Globalization in Medical Industry


Globalization has provided many opportunities to the medical industry with the rapid expansion of international trade in health services. Four main forms of exchange of these services that can be seen in the US market are:-

Exportation of health services

This implies the transborder movement of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. WorldCare Limited, for example, based in Bermuda and with access to physicians from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Cleveland Clinic and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, is offering telemedicine services and second opinion consultations in several parts of the world. (Julio Frenk, 2010)

Commercial presence

The establishment of health care units or services in other countries is also growing as a result both of trade liberalization and the saturation of the American managed care market. Given that most of these organizations are for-profit, their growth has forced them to look for new markets in Latin America and Eastern Europe (Julio Frenk, 2010)

Transnational movement of providers

The international movement of physicians and nurses, mostly to the US and Europe, is expanding as well. In the US, foreign physicians are brought into the health system largely through clinical residency programs. The movement of nurses is more dependent on direct demand from the labor market. A large proportion of foreign nurses in the US come from Jamaica and the UK, but given the shortage of this kind of personnel and the growth of the Hispanic population in the US, the exportation of nurses from Central and South America is increasing. (Julio Frenk, 2010)

Transnational movement of consumers

Finally, the movement of health care consumers is also growing. Foreign patients regularly use the services of internationally renowned hospitals in the United States. Residents of American border cities, in turn, search for culturally acceptable services in Mexico, in the case of persons of Hispanic origin, or cheaper medical services, mostly dental and ophthalmological, which are not covered by regular insurance plans. American citizens from all over the country also travel to Mexico to access treatments that for regulatory reasons are not available in the United States. (Julio Frenk, 2010)

The average income status in developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, Nigeria, and South Africa are also rising and more and more people now have financial resources to pay for high quality medical care. The global consumer expenditure on health goods and medical services are increasing yearly as we can see from the chart below.

Emerging Innovation Practices – Nanotechnology


Nanomaterials are making their way into all aspects of our lives; these materials are being increasingly used in pharmaceutical and medical applications, cosmetics and personal products, energy storage and efficiency, water treatment and air filtration, environmental remediation, chemical and biological sensors, military defense and explosives. (Chaudhry, 2012)

Under the influence of globalization and the advancement of technology, an emerging innovation practice that is revolutionizing the medical industry and subsequently impacting human lives, is the application of nanorobotics.

What are Nanorobots?



Nanorobots are highly advanced robots whose dimensions are in the scale of a nanometer (10-9 meters) and can be used as surgical instrumentation, drug delivery and diagnosis. These miniature robots would function like their full-size equivalents with their own sensors, and propulsion systems and could perform small tasks like delivering chemotherapy 1000 times more powerful than using drugs and would not cause as many side-effects to patients like the current treatments do. (Govette, 2015)

Among the diseases and conditions that can be treated by nanorobots are:-

  • Treating arteriosclerosis
  • Breaking up blood clots
  • Fighting cancer
  • Helping the body clot
  • Parasite Removal
  • Gout
  • Breaking up kidney stones

Using Nanorobots to Treat Cancer


Currently, cancer patients undergo chemotherapies or radiotherapies to combat cancer. However, these methods of treatments are toxic to the patient’s body by itself and could cause many side effects such as hair loss, weight loss, and exposure to x-ray radiations which could destroy the patient’s DNA and other molecular structures.  Are there other better methods to treat cancer?

Medical scientists are looking into the possibilities of using nanobots to treat incurable diseases such as cancer. Millions of nanobots can be injected into the patient’s bloodstream through a syringe which will then autonomously locate the specific target cells inside the patient’s body. Upon detecting the tumor or point of disease, the nanorobots will then interact with and destroy the cancer cells, while causing virtually zero collateral damage to the healthy tissues that surround it. According to the London Jewish Chronicle, a dozen types of cancer can currently be recognized by the nanobots including leukemias and solid tumors.

“No, no it’s not science fiction; it’s already happening,” said Ido Bachelet, a leading figure in the field of DNA nanotechnology.

The first human clinical trial using DNA nanobots will begin in 2015 on a human patient with late stage leukemia. Without the DNA nanobot treatment, the patient would be expected to die in the summer of 2015. Based upon animal trials they expect to remove the cancer within one month. (Wang, 2014) If this method proves to be successful, the technology could later be used to repair spinal cords, improve epilepsy, and diabetes.







Benefits of Using Nanorobots


  • Cost Reduction
    Nanotechnology holds the potential to deliver drugs or active agents specifically to the desired site of action, thus reducing the total drug requirement, and therefore reducing the cost. The possibility of resolving the sensitivity of detection using nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes and nanocantilevers means that detecting a disease at an early stage is now a realistic goal. This can dramatically impact on the clinical outcome and reduce the burden on the health-care system. (Mashelkar, Patwardhan, & Sengupta, 2013)
  • Quicker Treatment
    Since nanorobots are so small in size, they could be employed to repair and reconstruct damaged tissue on the cellular level.  This would have the effect of drastically increasing a person’s own natural ability to heal themselves.
    When a patient is infected by bacteria or viruses, nanorobots could also act as an artificial white cell, seeking out and digesting germs (bacteria, viruses, or fungi) in the blood. A complete treatment might take just a few hours, far faster than the days or weeks often needed for antibiotics to work. No bacteria would have time to evolve resistance to these machines as they can to antibiotics. (Freitas, 2014)

Unintended Consequences of Using Nanorobots


  • Grey goo theory
    Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy ("eating the environment"). Some scientists theorize that self-replicating nanobots could get out of control and devour all organic / inorganic materials. (Wikipedia, n.d.)
  • Terrorism
    Since nanobots can basically deconstruct anything, they have obvious applications in the use of weapons.  A maliciously coded swarm of nanobots could be unleashed on an enemy at which point they would begin dismantling everything at the molecular level.  Not only will this affect inanimate objects but they could, possibly, be programmed to literally disintegrate living tissue.  (Gudmundsson, n.d.)
  • Commercial Monopoly
    Although this technology is still in an immature stage where further testing needs to be done and nanorobotic products are still not widely used yet, however, it is foreseeable that this technology has the potential to disrupt the flow of the economy once it is introduced to the market. Since products without nanotechnology will not be able to keep up with the new developments offered by nanotechnology, organizations may take advantage of the lack of competitiveness in the market and monopolize by charging high rates for such products to make high profits. This will in turn cause social inequality as only the rich will have the privilege to enjoy such benefits from this technology.

Conclusion


In recent years, nanotechnology has evolved as a disruptive innovation to many existing technologies. Applications of nanotechnology are impacting many industries such as medicine, textile, electronics, construction, cosmetics, food, etc... The use of green nanotechnology is also getting popular with its benefits of enhancing environment sustainability.

However, as with any technology, there is always the potential for misuse. Using nanotechnology as a weapon is something that science hopes will not happen.  Science has, however, almost always been distorted for destructive uses. (Gudmundsson, n.d.) Besides the unintended consequences as mentioned above, there is also the uncertainty of how effective is the use of nanobots in humans, which could take many years later to discover if there are any harmful effects to the human health. Risk governance of nanotechnology and the implementation of regulations are thus very important and necessary.

The development of comprehensive regulation of nanotechnology will be vital to ensure that the potential risks associated with the research and commercial application of nanotechnology do not overshadow its potential benefits. Regulation may also be required to meet community expectations about responsible development of nanotechnology, as well as ensuring that public interests are included in shaping the development of nanotechnology. (Bowman & Hodge, 2006)

Personally, I am fascinated by the advancement of nanotechnology in the recent years and how it could potentially become a ubiquitous part of our lives in the near future. However, where would this technology lead us to in the long run? With insertion of technology into human bodies, are humans really humans nowadays? How far more do we want to “act as God” by recreating human features and interfering with human genomes? Would technology one day dominate and take over our lives? 



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