• Question: What uses do 'smart' bio-nanomaterials have?

    Asked by harrietgilbraith96 to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Andrew Thomas

      Andrew Thomas answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      The fact that they are “smart” means that essentially they should have whatever use you want for them. I am working with pharmacists to look at nano particles which have been functionalised to “hide” from the body’s immune system. The idea is that these particles then stick at the site of a tumour or injury and can be easily seen using X-rays, so cancer for example can be spotted at a very early stage.

      Other people are taking this further and looking to make the nano materials actually seek out and kill cancer cells (or other diseased cells). We could also in theory make particles which help the body heal or dissolve/remove fat from arteries and I’m pretty sure that will happen.

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Good question!!!

      ‘Smart’ bio-nanomaterials don’t really have a ‘brain’ or anything, they aren’t that smart, but they are called ‘smart’ because they are engineered to be very precise and good at something. For example, there are nanoparticle systems that some scientists have been that use 2 different types of particles to better find cancer in your body. The first type of nanoparticles is sort of light the scouts in the army – they go into the war zone first to try and scout out the cancer! When they find the cancer, they alert the other type of nanoparticle, which contains anti-cancer drug, of where the ‘enemy’ is. That way the 2nd kind of nanoparticle, like the troops, flood in to kill the cancer. We called this ‘Swarming the Target’ and I wrote a paper on it here! http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v10/n7/full/nmat3060.html

      This system of 2 types of nanoparticles for cancer fighting is called a ‘smart’ system because if far out-performs a system of just one type of nanoparticle. There are ‘smart’ bio-nanomaterials can can help bone grow at the site of an injury in your body, and these materials are bio-degradable so over time they dissolve away and leave only your healthy bone left! This is much better than having a metal plate at the site of injury, which is always a foreign body that your body doesn’t like.

      Cool, hun?!

    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 1 Jul 2012:

      Nice Q!!

      I guess this partly depends on how you define a bio-nanomaterial – technically, any protein with a recognition site or capability is a smart bionanomaterial, as it is targeted and refined (smart), a biologically derived material (which a biomaterial must have at least partly be to be called ‘bio’) and it is nanoscale! Antibodies are smart bionanomaterials! So are short RNA sequences!!

      An engineered smart bionanomaterial or bionanodevice, in reality mimics the action of these naturally occuring substances. A smart device should be able to do a job – be it seeking out and binding a substance (like Paige’s devices) or sending out a signal in response to a particular chemical (this is how my nanosensors work)

      So far, not many examples of truly nanoscale independently functioning materials have been shown to function in a useful manner however in the not so distant future, I see this being remedied and nanodevices being employed in a wide range of healthcare and diagnostic situations. if there were sensors that could enter he body and report on the pH or the stress status of different tissues without causing any toxic effects in the long run, that would be awesome, as we could get a better idea what’s going on during wound healing, muscle fatigue and diabetes. Being tiny, the devices ofer the opportunity to make current testing devices for disease management really really small, maybe in the future drugs testing and ocean water analysis will require only a tiny fraction of the millilitres of blood or the gallons of sea water that they do now!

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