Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
Nanomedicine
Abstract
This chapter is dedicated to the applications of nanoelectronics in
medicine. In fact, almost the entire topic was written with this aim. However, here
we will focus only on some issues specific to nanomedicine and directly related to
nanoelectronics, i.e., controlled drug delivery and biochips.
4.1
Drug Delivery and Healing Based on Nanomaterials
Nanomedicine is revolutionizing the entire area of medicine, irrespective of its
domains, by merging the biological and medical knowledge with nanotechnologies.
The subject is so vast that it is covered in many topics, among which we recommend
for the interested reader (
Jain 2008
;
Boisseau et al. 2010
). Also, there are journals
dedicated to nanomedicine, and many comprehensive review papers have been
written on this subject, such as
Riehemann et al.
(
2009
).
In principle, almost the entire topic can be seen as a nanomedicine topic since
the applications of nanomedicine are in
Shi et al.
(
2010
):
1.
Diagnostics
(in vitro), which has the fast detection of diseases or of disease
biomarkers with high sensitivity using biosensors as goal (see Chap.
2
).
2.
Imaging
(in vivo), where scanning probe microscopy, targeted nanoprobes such
as nanoparticles, nanotubes, quantum dots, and functionalized flakes of graphene,
could provide an early warning of a disease and could monitor its progress [see
Chap.
3
and the monumental work (
Chen 2011
)].
3.
Therapy
using certain nanomaterials, such as nanoparticles, to enhance X-ray
therapy or hyperthermia used to destroy the cancer cells.
4.
Tissue engineering
and development of artificial organs created by nanotechnolo-
gies; some aspects regarding biocompatible scaffolds used for tissue engineering
are treated in this chapter, while some references to this issue can be found in
Chap.
5
.
5.
Controlled drug delivery
, which is also the subject of this chapter.
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