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HEALTH-CARE REFORM: A Vision of the Future
The problems in medical and energy research lie in understanding and controlling events at a sub-microscopic level.
If we can build machines atom by atom, the possibilities are endless. One such possibility would be a medical system that could cure any disease.
The only question is: "How long will it take?" This depends primarily upon the efficiency of our educational and governmental systems and our ability to communicate these ideas to the public.
Nanotechnology is the science of building tiny machines; machines that could enter the human body and act as single-cell laboratories to detect and repair any problems. For example, Swedish scientists Edwin W.H. Jager and Olle Inganäs are developing nanostructures called actuators - mechanical devices that can move or control things - to handle biological materials such as single cells, bacteria, or molecules in liquids like blood plasma, and cell culture medium.
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The tiny machines - extremely durable and capable of a wide variety of tasks - are being developed and studied in scores of laboratories all over the world. This is critically important, because at present we don't have the capability to measure many of the microbiological processes in the body. |
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Lyme disease, for example, is a chronic and crippling disease caused by several types of bacteria. At present, there is no reliable test for this illness, and no cure. We must develop tools that can decipher the vast array of events that occur within our bodies on a molecular level, and nanotechnology offers very promising assistance.
Chip technology doubles every eighteen months. By the year 2020, chips will likely have the raw processing power of the human brain, and will forever exceed it after that. We already place chip implants in inner ears to improve hearing and in retinas to give limited sight to the blind, yet when one goes to a doctor seeking treatment of a chronic illness, the doctor is likely to simply take the patient's blood pressure; poke him a few times; and with some guesswork, write out an expensive prescription that may or may not work.
In light of the technology discussed above, a blood pressure instrument seems a very primitive tool, most commonly used as ritual, rather than to gain useful information on the patient's condition. We have proven that we have the capacity to work miracles, and yet for the most part, our methods are clumsy and ineffectual.
Links: Zyvex Nanotechnology Nanodot.org Nanozine
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