The next innovation in health care: micro/nanotechnology?

[Le Jacquelope]

Or better yet, is the onset of micro/nanotechnology

as in, micro/nanobots rushing through the body to cure ills without the use of side-effect laden drugs -

a major engineering and industrial collaboration (i.e., cross-licensing/patent issues) problem, or are there yet still more fundamental technologies that need to be discovered?

I envision, for cancer, micro or nano "seeker" bots - bots unable to do anything but look for things - making their run through the human body in search of cancer cells. Once identified, the doctor has the patient take in another round of micro/nanobots which kill said cells with prejudice. A second and third seeker/killer round is quickly prescribed to catch new cancer cells that might have sprouted up. The cells are killed and no side effects should occur. The doctor hits the kill switch and all bots die, or the bots have an automatic time-out.

This should also work for discovering and killing all manner of deadly viruses / bacteria. Bacterial resistance becomes irrelevant.

Micro/nano bots could even be used to help a doctor with surgery.

I feel that this should be where much of the next few hundred billion dollars of medical research should be spent.

Is this too far fetched, or just a really expensive engineering problem?

 

[rgraham666]

Read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.

It's a brilliant novel about the effects of nanotech on humanity and society.

There's things like skull guns and cookie cutters (explosives that can be inhaled.)

There's new jobs, like ractor, someone who makes a living in cyberspace interactive plays.

There's a new way of organizing the world, by something known as philes. A phile can be a tribe like the Zulus or Boers. A political organization like Senderoso Luminso. A religion like the Mormons. Or a political entity like the Neo-Victorians or The First Distributed Republic.

There are events that I couldn't imagine, like a toner war. This is where various philes release nanotech weapons that battle each other. If enough nanotech is destroyed everything in an area is covered in a thin film of grit resembling copier toner.

It manages to describe a world both dystopian and utopian at the same time.

As I said, a brilliant piece of work.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.

It's a brilliant novel about the effects of nanotech on humanity and society.

There's things like skull guns and cookie cutters (explosives that can be inhaled.)

There's new jobs, like ractor, someone who makes a living in cyberspace interactive plays.

There's a new way of organizing the world, by something known as philes. A phile can be a tribe like the Zulus or Boers. A political organization like Senderoso Luminso. A religion like the Mormons. Or a political entity like the Neo-Victorians or The First Distributed Republic.

There are events that I couldn't imagine, like a toner war. This is where various philes release nanotech weapons that battle each other. If enough nanotech is destroyed everything in an area is covered in a thin film of grit resembling copier toner.

It manages to describe a world both dystopian and utopian at the same time.

As I said, a brilliant piece of work.

I've heard of that book. Do they talk about the gray goo scenario in there?

I hope the use of nanotechnology, by nature of its complexity, remains too difficult for hobbyists to mess with. But its medical applications are nothing short of miraculous... indeed, to the Amish-type person, outright sorcery.

 

[cloudy]

The possibilities, if the technology is right, are just about endless for medical applications.

Unfortunately, I know very little about it.

Talk to me about history, and I'm good.

 

[rgraham666]

I've heard of that book. Do they talk about the gray goo scenario in there?

I hope the use of nanotechnology, by nature of its complexity, remains too difficult for hobbyists to mess with. But its medical applications are nothing short of miraculous... indeed, to the Amish-type person, outright sorcery.

No gray goo scenario in it.

There's an elaborate protocol set up around naontechnology in the book. It's called The Feed.

Basically it's a cable system along which free atoms and general purpose nanotechnological widgets are transfered. At the end are matter compilers where you punch in what you want and the compiler assembles it from stuff taken off The Feed. There are filters in the compilers so that you can't, say, manufacture 200 lbs of cocaine or nitroglycerine in your home.

Illegal compilers are set up, but the philes and the Economic Authority, (the organization that guarantees the universal currency) come down real hard on these.

The nanotech in the book is handled almost off hand. It exists. People use it every minute. It's just a fact of life.

As an example of how ubiquitous nanotech is, the chopsticks have advertising messages running up the sides of them while you're eating.

 

[gauchecritic]

The thing about nano-tech is the same as that of computers.

I'm of the opinion that computers can never equal the complexity of the human brain, when a computer becomes equal to a brain then it is in essence; a brain.

The same with nano-tech, when tiny robots are equal to the information and purpose of human cells then they are to all intents and purposes; human cells.

A nano-bot, as far as I know, is lots of bucky balls and tubes (atoms) put together to provide their own motive power and there is no way to provide them with the complex 'intelligence' of a human cell.

The very end of your finger tip is a dead cell, underneath which are living cells. When a child is growing in the womb (and up to about 21 years of age) each and every single cell knows exactly what its purpose is and where it should be located. There are no heart cells in your feet, there are no liver cells in your brain.

When you become ill this triggers your bone marrow into making white cells whose only and single job is to attack whatever infects you (which is why transplants are hard work) and this is what nano-bots are based upon.

However, a cancer cell is a perfectly normal cell that doesn't know its place and continues replicating and infecting other cells. (I could go onto a very political rant here about education and class structure but I won't), so if a living cell can become its host's enemy then you have a grey goo scenario brewing from inception with nano-bots.

I love the idea of nano-bots but I'm afraid it's as far away as positronic brains,

 

[Le Jacquelope]

No gray goo scenario in it.

There's an elaborate protocol set up around naontechnology in the book. It's called The Feed.

Basically it's a cable system along which free atoms and general purpose nanotechnological widgets are transfered. At the end are matter compilers where you punch in what you want and the compiler assembles it from stuff taken off The Feed. There are filters in the compilers so that you can't, say, manufacture 200 lbs of cocaine or nitroglycerine in your home.

Illegal compilers are set up, but the philes and the Economic Authority, (the organization that guarantees the universal currency) come down real hard on these.

The nanotech in the book is handled almost off hand. It exists. People use it every minute. It's just a fact of life.

As an example of how ubiquitous nanotech is, the chopsticks have advertising messages running up the sides of them while you're eating.

Thinking of ramifications on my own, I can imagine animated clothes, resizable clothes, nanobots destroying fats and starchy carbs as food enters the stomach, phew, I'm going to be the craziest intellectual property king of all time when that technology matures

 

[Edward Teach]

Where the hell is Maths when we need her?

She does research on nanotubes doesn't she?

The little wench is probably publishing papers and getting patents as we speak.

with apologies to Shane
MathGirl. MathGirl. Come back MathGirl.
(DurtGurl too)

 

[rgraham666]

Personally, for reasons gauche stated, I'm doubtful that nanotech will result in nanobots.

However there are lots of other uses. Material science will be greatly expanded. It should be possible to build all kinds of things easier. I'm thinking metal alloys, or foam-plastic mixes.

Also, if not nanobots, it might make it possible to build existing things much smaller.

At one point in The Diamond Age a character was committing a crime. A police drone, called a 'wasp' because that's what it vaguely looked like, spotted the crime by recognizing the lidar (Light detection and ranging using a laser) signature of the nunchucks being used.

It closed and fired a near microscopic dart at the perp. This dart had an inertial tracking system in it. After tracking the perp's movement for a couple of days, the dart released 'spores' containing the record of his movements.

Another drone picked up the spores, carried them to the police station. They read the records and these pointed out where he was most likely to be found. So they went and found him.

As I said, it was a brilliant book. Highly recommended.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

The thing about nano-tech is the same as that of computers.

I'm of the opinion that computers can never equal the complexity of the human brain, when a computer becomes equal to a brain then it is in essence; a brain.

It would be incredibly hazardous to even try to develop a nanobot with that level of intelligence. I think a lot of things can be done with semi-autonomous nanobots long before we think about that level of AI.

In medicine, they just need to crawl and look for simple things.

The same with nano-tech, when tiny robots are equal to the information and purpose of human cells then they are to all intents and purposes; human cells.

Yes...

A nano-bot, as far as I know, is lots of bucky balls and tubes (atoms) put together to provide their own motive power and there is no way to provide them with the complex 'intelligence' of a human cell.

Indeed - I would never want them to be that. That could pose a huge threat to the survival of all life, if it got out of hand.

I'd say nanobots would be more... simple "minded".

The very end of your finger tip is a dead cell, underneath which are living cells. When a child is growing in the womb (and up to about 21 years of age) each and every single cell knows exactly what its purpose is and where it should be located. There are no heart cells in your feet, there are no liver cells in your brain.

When you become ill this triggers your bone marrow into making white cells whose only and single job is to attack whatever infects you (which is why transplants are hard work) and this is what nano-bots are based upon.

Nano bots, if I were directing the research, would absolutely require human intervention for actually doing anything "active" (versus "passive", which means scanning and looking around).

However, a cancer cell is a perfectly normal cell that doesn't know its place and continues replicating and infecting other cells. (I could go onto a very political rant here about education and class structure but I won't), so if a living cell can become its host's enemy then you have a grey goo scenario brewing from inception with nano-bots.

Cancer cells can be identified from normal cells, can't they?

I love the idea of nano-bots but I'm afraid it's as far away as positronic brains,

I wouldn't think we'd need positronic brains for that. A nanobot could be like what rgraham said, they'd detect something out of place and then report it. A doctor would then target what needs to be destroyed and send them forth to do it.

I feel that positronic brains and the end of humanity are close neighbors.

 

[gauchecritic]

Cancer cells can be identified from normal cells, can't they?

Yes, yes they can. But cancer isn't an infection from elsewhere, it's a mutation of healthy cells and until it starts being cancerous there's no way to differentiate it from any other cell.

It has to already be cancerous to be identified and even then the very best 'regen tank' (your own body) doesn't recognise them as foreign because their 'signature' says healthy tissue.