Nanotechnology in Biological Systems

Nanoscience and nanotechnology refer to the understanding and control of matter at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels, at the length scale of approximately 1 - 100 nanometers. The purpose of the nano –bio research opportunity is to stimulate nanoscience and nanotechnology research approaches that have the potential to make valuable contributions to biology and medicine. Nanoscience and nanotechnology can bring fundamental changes to the study and understanding of biological processes in health and disease, as well as enable novel diagnostics and interventions for treating disease. Thus, advances based on nanotechnology and nanoscience could result in a new era in healthcare.
Nanotechnology emerges from the physical, chemical, biological, and engineering sciences, where novel techniques are being developed to probe and manipulate single atoms and molecules. These tools have already enabled a myriad of new discoveries of how the properties of matter are governed by the atomic and molecular arrangements at nanometer dimensions. These discoveries have impacted manufacturing processes of a wide range of materials and devices, resulting in substantial improvements of existing technology as well as entirely new technological innovations. Controlling the design properties, of materials and devices at the nanoscale is made possible by exploiting strategies that are frequently complemented by top-down engineering approaches. While significant progress has been made in material science, it is apparent that nanoscience and nanotechnology-based approaches are poised to revolutionize research in biology and medicine. For example, with the significant progress in understanding the genetic basis of and biochemical pathways that are involved in disease and injury processes, there is a need for ultra-sensitive, real-time monitoring and detection technologies. Nanotechnology can be used to design multi-functional and multi-analyte diagnostic systems that not only define early stage changes or progression to a disease state, but also allow the identification of unique biological molecules, chemicals and structures not addressable by current assays. Nascent nanotechnology-based imaging technologies for inflammation, metastasis, angiogenesis are emerging. In addition, nanotechnology and nanoscience offer new opportunities in the treatment and management of diseases and traumatic injuries. Nanoscale multifunctional materials, capitalizing on progress in genomics and proteomics, allow targeted delivery of molecular therapies with enhanced efficacy.
Studies that employ nanotechnology techniques and concepts and are focused on biological processes will give completely new insights into the physical relationships between cellular components and functional irregularities that trigger pathological abnormities. Nanotechnology and nanoscience offer a means to control the design and assembly of biomolecular processes relevant in health and disease. For example, although the processes involved in energy conversion have been studied for many years through enzymology and structural biology, nanotechnology and nanoscience offer a means of constructing a biomolecular machine that uses biological energy sources such as ATP or electrochemical gradients, in novel ways. The successful design and development of such biomolecular machines would demonstrate understanding of a key biological process and create opportunities for interventions based on engineering principles. Ultimately, it will be possible to understand cells from a genetic, biochemical, physiological, and engineering perspective, thus enabling the fabrication of nanoscale modules de novo for therapeutic applications. For example, the nanoscale engineering principles derived could lead to novel bioinspired systems and architectures, such as biocompatible nanomachines incorporating polymer-based motility inspired by lessons learned from the study of biological models.
To achieve this goal, significant progress must be made in the study of biological systems at the nanoscale. While parallel efforts in molecular biology have identified a vast number genes and proteins integral to biological processes, the manner in which these biological building blocks and processes integrate or assemble and how these processes can be constructively modified is still a mystery. An important challenge for the field is to determine the “assembly instructions” for a cell and then to implement these instructions to generate synthetic cellular components at the nanoscale.