Special issue on 'nanotechnologies: emerging applications in biomedicine'.

摘要

Nano, a word originating from the Greek word for dwarf, is a prefix that has attracted major attention over the last decade. At the engineering faculties, scientists have for long been engaged in research related to nanotechnology. This area is defined by the ability to create and control objects on the 1-100 nm scale, with the goal to develop novel materials with specific properties and functions. Compared to the size of eukaryotic cells, nanometer-sized objects are several orders of magnitudes smaller. This has generated great expectations, from within the research community as well as from the society, in the novel area termed nanomedicine. This area is defined as the discipline where nanotechnological advances becomes integrated into medical applications. Whereas nanomedicine has the potential to shape, direct, and change future medical treatments in a revolutionary manner, the complexity of the human as an organism certainly makes nanomedicine a challenging ar￡a to engage in. Yet, this area is already showing great impact on biomedical research, primarily because novel experimental platforms are created for in vitro studies. As these platforms allow novel designs of the bio-experiments, questions that previously were impossible to solve due to lack of technologies can be addressed.