Nanomedicine and Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology

Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology

Nanomedicine is a branch of medicine that applies the knowledge and tools of nanotechnology to the prevention and treatment of disease. Nanomedicine involves the use of nanoscale materials, such as biocompatible nanoparticles and nanorobots, for diagnosis, delivery, sensing or actuation purposes in a living organism. Nanotechnology has many definitions but in general it is the use and application of materials with sizes in the nanometer range. Just as a millimetre is one-thousandth of a metre, a nanometer is one-millionth of a millimetre. In more understandable terms, a human hair is approximately 80,000 nanometers in diameter and the growing science and industry of nanotechnology utilises materials below 1000 nanometers. Benefits of working at this very small scale have been seen for many years over such diverse areas as electronics and energy storage to sunscreens and food packaging.