Bionanotechnology: arrays in the future prospects of the field

摘要

Nanotechnology's prominence in modern medicine is indisputable, but establishing exactly how biological systems will interact with nanostructures can be far from clean cut. Biological systems can seem messy and difficult to reproduce with precision, so that different reports of similar studies seem to contradict each other. Arrays of one-dimensional nanostructures serve as a case in point. The nanostructure dimensions-roughly the size of a cell in length but 100-1000 times smaller in diameter-can allow access deep into the cell without causing excessive damage making them potentially very useful. However, studies of these systems have highlighted how sensitive they can be to apparently insignificant differences in the experimental details. In this issue Karen Martinez and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen describe some of the advances that have been made in cellular applications of arrays of one-dimensional nanostructures [1]. The review highlights the progress in the field so far and trends that are emerging from the literature.