What’s wrong with you? How many times have you heard this and the answer might have been: I’ve got a cold, the flu….Behind this there are causes and processes that are in the nanoscale: a few billionth of a meter.
Medicine is trying to cure at the meter scale what is actually caused, and is working at the sub-micron scale, million times smaller. If you were trying to hit a mosquito with a cannon ball you would be working at (approximately) the same difference in scale.
The result is not just a tremendous waste but is tremendous potential of undesirable side effect (just imaging firing a cannon in your home to hit a mosquito…).
The emergence of capabilities to work at nano-scale opens up a new scenario in medicine. Scientists have discovered ways to tag nano-scale particles, like viruses, proteins, and are looking for nano-projectile to hit them.
It is a whole new field, nanomedicine, and it will become more and more important in the next decade and in the following ones. Information technology, and math – a lot of it, will play a major role.