Chapter category: Nanomedicine
Other Basic Capabilities
Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities
Edited by: Robert A. Freitas, Jr.ISBN: 1-57059-680-8
» Get more information about this book at landesbioscience.com «
Chapter authors:
Robert A. Freitas
This final Chapter describes a miscellany of important technical capabilities that may prove useful in some or all medical nanodevices, in various scenarios or theaters of operation. Any one of these subjects deserves an entire chapter to itself, but unfortunately there is only space in this introductory text for a brief survey of each area. The most important of these topics is computation (Section 10.2), including nanomechanical, nanoelectronic, and biological computing, as well as nanoscale data storage technologies. However, the fields of organic and fullerene nanoelectronics, biocomputing, and quantum computing are advancing so fast that whatever is written here will quickly become obsolete. Thus our coverage in this Volume is limited to a broad overview. Interested readers are strongly advised to consult the current literature for the latest results.
Additional chapters from this book:
Other Basic Capabilities
Robert A. Freitas
This final Chapter describes a miscellany of important technical capabilities that may prove useful in some or all medical nanodevices, in various scenarios or theaters of operation. Any one of the...
Manipulation and Locomotion
Robert A. Freitas
Manipulation and mobility are crucial basic capabilities in most classes of medical nanodevices. Manipulation includes handling fluids, biological objects such as tissue matrix fibers or cellular e...
Navigation
Robert A. Freitas
It is difficult to imagine any significant application of medical nanodevices which does not involve navigation, however crude. Devices intended to monitor somatic states, assemble artificial inter...
Communication
Robert A. Freitas
Communication is an important fundamental capability of medical nanorobots. At the most basic level, nanomachines must pass sensory and control data among internal subsystems to ensure stable and c...
Power
Robert A. Freitas
Device energetics may represent the most serious limitation in nanorobot design. Almost all medical nanodevices will be actively powered. Mechanical motions, pumping, chemical transformations and t...
Shapes and Metamorphic Surfaces
Robert A. Freitas
It has been asserted that nanomechanical systems fundamentally differ from systems of biological molecular machinery in their basic architecture—specifically, that nanomechanical components are sup...
Nanosensors and Nanoscale Scanning
Robert A. Freitas
Medical nanorobots need to acquire information from their environment to properly execute their assigned tasks. Such acquisition is achieved using onboard nanoscale sensors, or nanosensors, of vari...
Molecular Transport and Sortation
Robert A. Freitas
The human body consists of ~7 x 1027 atoms arranged in a highly aperiodic physical structure. Although 41 chemical elements are commonly found in the body’s construction (Table 3.1), CHON comprises...
Pathways to Molecular Manufacturing
Robert A. Freitas
Most contemporary industrial fabrication processes are based on “top-down” technologies, wherein small objects are sawn or machined from larger objects, or small features are imposed on larger obje...
The Prospect of Nanomedicine
Robert A. Freitas
The history of disease is vastly older than that of humankind itself. Indeed, disease and parasitism have been inseparable companions to life since the dawn of life on Earth. Fossilized bacteria si...
