Nanomedicine

Abstract

Nanomedicine is the use in medicine of nanoscale or nanostructured materials that have unique medical effects due to their structure. As these objects are found at the interface between the molecular and macroscopic world, quantum mechanics still governs their material properties such as magnetism, colour, solubility or diffusion properties. These properties can be exploited to develop improved medication and diagnostic procedures. Some effects of the interaction with cells and tissue are not restricted to objects with a scale of 1–100 nm – the technical definition of nanotechnology – but can also occur at significantly larger sizes. Therefore, the field of nanomedicine traditionally includes objects with a size of up to 1000 nm. The main areas of research in nanomedicine are drug delivery, diagnostics, and biomaterials/tissue engineering.