The Future of Nanomedicine in Sport Injuries When you hear of nanomedicine, what comes to mind? For me, I thought of an Ipod nano, but this nano, I thought to myself will deal with medical treatment. It never occurred to me that this nanomedicine is our future. “Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures” (Freitas Jr., 1998-2006). Some examples of how nanomedicine could change regular medical procedures: Nanomachines can be used to monitor the internal chemistry of the body. Nanorobots is another type of nanotechnology, which has wireless transmitter capabilities. This new technology can be imported into our circulatory and lymph systems to cairculate throughout our body so as to transmit any abnormalities or imbalance chemicals that may have or will be occurring; This technology could also be place in the human nervous system so that it could monitor the activities that is going on in the brain. It will monitor their pulses and other functions in the brain; another use of nanomedicine is through implantation. This technology is implanted into the body so that it could dispense medication to the appropriate site; when it come to defibrillators and pacemakers, nanomachines could influence the actions of each cells; The most sophisticated nanomedicine to me involves the substitution of nanorobots for surgical doctors. A nanorobot is a small machine intended to carry out a specific duty or tasks continuously and with accuracy at nanoscale level, that is, dimensions of a smaller nanometers or lesser, where 1 nm = 10-9 meter. This type of machines may repair injured cells, or may go inside the cells and replace or help damaged intracellular structures. Nanorobots may duplicate it selves, or fix the genetic deficiencies by changing or replacing DNA molecules. Nanomedicine, “a cutting-edge area of biomedical research that seeks to use nanotechnology tools to improve human health.” (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2010). The one main focus for me is the impact this new technology will have on sport injuries. We are talking about players been able to continue their athletic career after a terrible injury. I think this new technology will change the world as we know it, because every injury will be treatable, which means, no more ending career injuries any more. “ The aim of nanomedicine is the comprehensive monitoring, control, construction, repair, defence, and improvement of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures that operate massively in parallel at the single-cell level, ultimately to achieve medical benefit” (Zarbin, 2010). Nanorobots are of important interest to researchers in the medical field. This has resulted in an increase to the field of nanomedicine. “Once nanomachines are available, the ultimate dream of every healer, medicine man, and physician throughout recorded history will, at last, become a reality” (Freitas Jr., 1998-2006). “These emerging tools, constructed at the scale of microns and nanometers (billionths of a meter), can manipulate and measure large numbers of biological molecules rapidly, precisely and, eventually, at a cost of pennies or less per measurement” (Heath, Davis, & Hood, 2009). This is what makes this movement so much more interesting because nanomedicine will change the face of health system and to crown it all, it will be cost efficient. There will be no limitation to what this technology could do. “At present, cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. In 2005, out of 58 million deaths worldwide, 7.6 million people died of cancer” (Gao‌, Feng‌, & Guo‌, 2010). A technology that could put an end to the reign of cancer; who wouldn’t want to be part of that. A lot of companies are investing into this nanomedicine because they know that the future of medicine rest on nanomedicine. “According to one forecast, the U.S. market for nanotechnology medical products will increase to $53 billion by 2011 and will double over the following five years.” (Elizabeth McGrady, 2010). What make this even more interesting is that this number may increase.

Bibliography
Elizabeth McGrady, S. C. (2010). Radio frequency identification, Global positioning systems--GPS, Nanotechnology, Health care industry, Technology adoption, Management decisions, Studies. Journal of Healthcare Management , 55 (5), 13.
Freitas Jr., R. A. (1998-2006). Nanomedicine. Retrieved from The Foresight Institute: http://foresight.org/Nanomedicine/index.html
Gao‌, J., Feng‌, S.-S., & Guo‌, Y. (2010, october). Nanomedicine. Retrieved from Future Medicine: http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/nnm.10.94
Heath, J. R., Davis, M. R., & Hood, L. (2009). Nanomedicine target cancer. Scientific America , 300 (2), 3.
National Human Genome Research Institute. (2010, 09 28). National Human Genome Research Institute. Retrieved from National Institute of Health: http://www.genome.gov/11508736
Zarbin, M. (2010). Nanotechnology - Nanomedicine; Researchers at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Institute of Ophthalmology target nanotechnology - nanomedicine. (F. &. Obesity, Ed.) Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology , 1.

-----------------------
ID # 174833

Nanomedicine

By Ogbemudia M. Iyoha

(