Nanotechnology: Towards the detection and treatment of inflammatory diseases

Biological systems operate at the nanoscale. Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to monitor and treat biological systems in health and disease. This is accomplished by real time monitoring of molecular signaling at the cellular and tissue level. During the past decade, there has been an explosion in this field, resulting in revolutionary advances in determining the microstructure and function of living systems. These discoveries have led to the development of powerful tools for fundamental biological and medical research. Nanotechnology has been applied to targeted drug delivery to minimize side effects, creating implantable materials as scaffolds for tissue engineering, creating implantable devices, surgical aids and nanorobotics, as well as throughput drug screening and medical diagnostic imaging. The nanoinitiatives are funded by governments and private sources throughout the world to develop or further refine the technology to provide the beyond-imaginable, most sophisticated tools to a physician and scientists to inflammatory diseases. No doubt, there will be many technical, regulatory and legal challenges in the deployment of these technologies. Unquestionably, there is enough desire and commitment to meet these challenges for the good of society and betterment of the quality of life.