Sustainable Design and Social Responsibility - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 198

Table B5.2 ( Continued )

Design Principle Opportunities for Sustainable Biomedicine

Avoiding chemical
derivatives

Computational methods and natural products
chemistry can help scientists start with a better
synthetic framework. Prevents unwanted
by-products all along the medical critical path,
including toxic by-products, as well as microbial
processes (e.g., prevention of cross-resistance,
antibiotic pass-through treatment facilities, and
production of “super bugs,” bacteria that are
resistant and tolerant of synthetic antibiotics). It
can also prevent chiral and enantiomer
compounds that are resistant to natural
degradation (e.g., left-hand chirals may be much
more easily broken down than right-hand chirals
of the same compound; also, one chiral may be
toxic and the other efficacious).

Atom economy The same amount of value (e.g., information storage

and application) is available on a much smaller
scale. Thus, devices are smarter and smaller and
more economical in the long term. This not only
means they are less hazardous to the patient (e.g.,
neural implants that are smaller take up less cranial
space), but produce less waste overall.

Nanomaterials Materials that may be used in improved devices and

drug delivery systems to support sustainable
designs (e.g., nanodevices to monitor
environmental quality, nanomaterials to treat
medical wastes, and improved laboratory
techniques to reduce the generation of bulk and
nanoscale wastes). However, the uncertainties
about the toxicity of nanomaterials can be a
downside.

Selection of safer
solvents and
reaction
conditions

To date, most of the progress has been the result of
wet chemistry and bench research.
Computational methods will streamline the
process, including quicker scale-up in
pharmaceutical and other medical manufacturing
processes.