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Nanomedicine book series by Robert A. Freitas
Jr.
About Nanomedicine (the book series)
Nanomedicine, the technical book series, will be published
in four Volumes over the course of several years. This website
is the first commercial Internet domain exclusively devoted
to nanomedicine and is also the permanent online home of the
Nanomedicine book series. Volume I was published by Landes
Bioscience in October 1999. Volume IIA was published by Landes
Bioscience in October 2003. Volume IIB and Volume III will
be published in future years. Visitors are encouraged to employ
links to specific subsections of these Volumes in their own
books, papers, or online discussions. All local URLs and anchored
book links from this website will remain stable.
Nanomedicine,
Volume I: Basic Capabilities
by Robert Freitas is now available in softcover.
The
softcover edition of Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities
is $89 + shipping.
http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/
www.NanoMedicine.com
About
Robert Freitas
Table of Contents:
Volume I. Basic Capabilities
The first volume of Nanomedicine describes the preliminary
technical issues involved in medical nanodevice design, along
with some details of the required foundational technical competencies.
These required competencies include the ability to sort and
transport molecules; chemical, acoustic, and other physical
sensors; shape, texture, and compositional control of external
surfaces; in vivo power storage, generation, and transmission;
communication among nanorobots, and between doctors, patients,
and in vivo nanorobots; navigation throughout the body and
inside individual cells; manipulation and locomotion at the
microscopic level; nanocomputation, timers and nanoclocks,
cryothermal operations, and defensive cellular armaments.
Chapter 1. The Prospect of Nanomedicine
Chapter 1 defines the field of nanomedicine and its objectives,
keyed to the "biological existence proof" of the feasibility
of nanotechnology. Several thought experiments are employed
to help the reader develop an intuitive appreciation of time,
space, and mechanics in the microworld, where nanorobots will
be operating. The goals of biotechnology-based "molecular
medicine" are carefully distinguished from the goals of nanomedicine.
The evolution of the concept of nanomedicine and cell repair
machines is described as the natural culmination of millennia
of medical history. The limits of nanomedicine are presented,
although by 20th century standards these limits appear, for
the most part, quite tolerable and modest in scope. The applicability
of the Hippocratic Oath in the nanomedical era is explored.
The chapter finishes with an overview of the entire three
volume series.
Chapter 2. Pathways to Nanomedicine
Since nanomachines cannot yet be built, it is necessary to
credibly establish that such devices are feasible, and that
their design, fabrication, and operation violate no laws of
physics and will obey sound engineering principles. A number
of classical objections to nanotechnology (e.g. quantum mechanics,
thermal motions, friction) are considered and resolved. Precursor
technologies to nanotechnology and nanomedicine, such as micromachines/MEMS,
telemicrosurgery, and tissue engineering, are briefly reviewed.
The concept of molecular manufacturing is reviewed, including
the differences between top-down and bottom-up manufacturing.
Three principal paths to molecular manufacturingproximal probes,
biotechnology, and supramolecular chemistry with self-assemblyare
outlined, and a few alternative pathways are suggested. The
chapter concludes with discussions and brief descriptions
of molecular machine parts, nanocomponents, and nanomaterials,
along with the results of molecular computational simulations;
nano-assemblers and the Foresight Institute Feynman Prize;
desktop manufacturing; and the challenges of molecular engineering
and design (nano-CAD).
Chapter 3. Molecular Transport and Sortation
The human body is comprised of at least 100,000 different
molecular species, including perhaps 5,000 different species
within each tissue cell (Section 3.1). Transporting and sorting
such a broad range of essential molecular species will be
an important basic capability of many nanomedical systems.
The three principal methods for distinguishing and conveying
molecules that are most useful in nanomedicine are diffusion
transport (Section 3.2), membrane filtration (Section 3.3),
and receptor-based transport (Section 3.4). The chapter ends
with a brief discussion of binding site engineering (Section
3.5). Chapter 3 detailed outline (try this first) Chapter
3 text and illustrations
Chapter 4. Nanosensors and Nanoscale
Scanning Medical nanorobots must be able to acquire information
from their environment if they are to properly execute their
assigned tasks. Such acquisition is achieved using onboard
nanoscale sensors, or nanosensors, of various types. Nanosensors
make it possible for medical nanodevices to monitor environmental
states at three different operational levels: (1) internal
nanorobot states, (2) local and global somatic states (inside
the human body), and (3) extrasomatic states (sensory data
originating outside the human body). Specific nanosensor technologies
include sensors to detect chemical, displacement and motion,
force and mass, acoustic, thermal, and electromagnetic stimuli.
Typical sensor device mass, volume, and maximum sensitivity
limits are summarized in each Section. The chapter ends with
a brief description of in vivo bioscanning and external macrosensing.
Chapter 5. Shapes and Metamorphic Surfaces
It has been asserted that nanomechanical systems fundamentally
differ from systems of biological molecular machinery in their
basic architecturespecifically, that nanomechanical components
are supported and constrained by stiff housings, while biological
components often can move freely with respect to one another.
As regards medical nanodevices, this may be a somewhat artificial
distinction. The likelihood that most nanoscale components
will be connected in rigid arrays does not imply that the
nano machines themselves must be entirely rigid in shape,
nor does it rule out the possibility that some major nanomachine
components may be designed to allow periodic reconfiguration
and repositioning. A flexible or "metamorphic" surface is
a nanodevice exterior surface comprised of independently controllable
elements that can translate or rotate their relative positions,
thus enlarging or contracting total surface area of the device,
or changing its shape, with or without altering the membership
of elements in the surface, with or without altering the enclosed
volume of the entire nanomachine, while maintaining continuous
structural integrity and nonpermeability of the surface. The
range of possible designs is enormous.
Chapter 6. Power Device
energetics may represent the most serious limitation in
nanorobot design. Almost all medical nanodevices will be actively
powered. Mechanical motions, pumping, chemical transformations
and the like all require the expenditure of energy. Even a
drug molecule interaction with a biological receptor site
reduces free energy by ~50 kT. Heat dissipation is also a
major consideration in nanomachine design, particularly when
large numbers of nanomachines are deployed in cyto or in vivo.
Chapter 6 opens with a review of the various forms of stored
energy that may be accessible to working nanodevices. Subsequent
sections describe how various forms of energy (likely to be
available in vivo) can be converted into many other formsincluding
thermal, mechanical, acoustic, chemical, electromagnetic,
and nuclear sourcesand how such energy may be transmitted
from one place to another inside the human body. The chapter
closes with an enumeration of issues and techniques useful
in assessing energy requirements and performance restrictions
in medical nanodevice design.
Chapter 7. Communication
Communication is an important fundamental capability of medical
nanorobots. At the most basic level, nanomachines must pass
sensory and control data among internal subsystems to ensure
stable and correct device operation. They must also exchange
messages with biological cells, communicating with the human
body at the molecular level. Nanodevices must be able to communicate
with each other in order to: (1) coordinate complex, large-scale
cooperative activities, (2) pass along relevant sensory, messaging,
navigational, and other operational data, and (3) monitor
collective task progress. Finally, nanorobots must be able
to receive messages from, and transmit messages to, both the
human patient and external entities including antennas and
telecommunications links, laboratory or bedside computers,
and attending medical personnel.
Chapter 7 opens with an analysis of the most common communication
modalities and communication network architectures, followed
by a discussion of the many specific communication tasks to
be performed. This latter discussion, constituting about half
of Chapter 7, concentrates on the following specific situations:
Inmessaging from external sources, inmessaging from patient
or user, intradevice messaging, interdevice messaging, biocellular
messaging, outmessaging to the user, outmessaging to an external
receiver, and transvenue outmessaging.
Chapter 8. Navigation
It is difficult to imagine any significant application of
medical nanodevices which does not involve navigation, however
crude. Devices intended to monitor somatic states, assemble
artificial internal structures, remove tumors or foreign matter,
combat infections, or perform repairs, must normally be extremely
tissue- or cell-specific. Navigation is also required to execute
many control protocols, to locate dedicated energy, communication,
or navigational helper organs, or to stationkeep and coordinate
with other nanodevices. Even bloodborne nanorobots intended
to operate solely at the systemic levelsuch as nanobiotics,
immunocytes, or respirocytes (artificial red cells)must know
if they have been prematurely ejected from the vasculature
so that they may cease functioning or at least modify their
activities.
Chapter 8 opens with a broad survey of human somatography.
This is followed by general discussions of positional navigation
including high-resolution navigational networks; functional
navigation, ranging from simple demarcation strategies to
thermographic, barographic, and chemographic navigation, as
well as continuous real-time biotagraphic mapping; and cytonavigation,
including cytometrics, molecular cytoidentification, and navigational
cytography and nucleography. The chapter concludes with a
brief look at the challenges of ex vivo navigation. Ê Chapter
9. Manipulation and Locomotion Manipulation and mobility will
be important basic capabilities in many classes of medical
nanodevices. This chapter opens with a discussion of adhesion
forces at the molecular level and the performance of nanoscale
fluid pumps and fluidic circuits. Several classes of nanomanipulators
are described, along with various tool tips and manipulator
configurations such as massively parallel manipulator arrays.
Techniques of in vivo locomotion are described in the context
of bloodstream and nanodevice rheology, including swimming,
anchoring, nanodiapedesis, cell penetration, intracellular
mobility, and cytocarriage. The chapter concludes with a discussion
of ex vivo locomotion.
Chapter 10. Other Basic Capabilities
Chapter 10 describes a number of important additional technical
capabilities that may prove useful to some or all medical
nanodevices, in various scenarios or theaters of operation.
The most important of these capabilities is computation, including
nanomechanical, nanoelectronic, and nanoscale data storage
technologies. Other capabilities include timers and nanoclocks
with long-term nanosecond stability; high-pressure materials
storage; limitations and techniques of cryothermal operations;
and defensive cellular armaments which will allow pathogenic
cells to be efficiently dispatched.
VOLUME II. SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS
The second volume of Nanomedicine considers the system-level
technical requirements in the design and operation of medical
nanodevices, and systems of such nanodevices. Part 1 of Volume
II describes aspects of nanomedical operations and configurations
including issues of closed-loop sensory feedback and teleoperation,
swarm control, centralized vs. distributed control architectures,
repair and reliability issues, deployment configurations,
medical utility fogs, and replicators. Part 2 of Volume II
deals with a multitude of issues involving clinical safety
and performance, including medical nanorobot biocompatibility,
immunoreactivity and thrombogenicity, methods of nanorobotic
somatic ingress and egress, side effects of nanomedical treatments,
nanodevice failure modes and unwanted environmental interactions,
potential iatrogenic factors, and other safety issues. Part
3 of Volume II reviews the various classes of medical nanosystems,
including instruments and tools, diagnostic systems, specific
medical nanorobot devices, chromatin and protein editors,
and various complex nanorobotic systems including cell repair
and personal defensive systems.
VOLUME III. APPLICATIONS
The third volume of Nanomedicine describes the full range
of nanomedical applications using molecular nanotechnology
inside the human body. It is written from the perspective
of a future nanomedical physician or biomedical practitioner
in an era of widely available nanomedicine. Volume III describes
appropriate nanomedical treatments for cardiovascular repair,
disease processes, trauma and acute injuries including amputations
and thermal/radiation burns, and brain and spinal injuries.
Nanomedical issues in nutrition and digestion, sex and reproduction,
and cosmetics and recreation are explored, along with proof-of-principle
designs for numerous nanoengineered artificial organs and
human augmentation systems. Chapter 30 describes the control
and elimination of most aging processes and causes of death
prevalent in the 20th century, the ultimate limits to human
longevity, and current cryonics preservation strategies along
with plausible revival protocols. The volume concludes with
a discussion of possible social impacts and social acceptance
of nanomedicine, nanotechnology implementation timelines,
and some speculations on the future of hospitals, pharmaceutical
companies, and the medical profession.
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