[Audio] NCN Nano-Devices for Medicine and Biology: Tutorials

This tutorial will cover general problems and approaches to the design of engineered nanomedical systems. An example to be covered is the engineering design of programmable multilayered nanoparticles (PMNP) to control a multi-sequence process of targeting to rare cells in-vivo, re-targeting to intracellular sites, and controlling of final gene/drug delivery. Therapeutic genes can be manufactured inside living cells as a "nanofactory" under the control of these molecular biosensors providing feedback- controlled single cell medicine.

Nanoparticles have unique physical and chemical properties that make them very useful for biological and chemical sensing. For example, colloidal gold has been used as an optical transducer for antibody based sensing for over twenty years and is the basis for a many of the point-of-use diagnostic assays currently available to the general public.

As we enter the 21st century, we stand at a major inflection point for biology and medicine-the way we view and practice these disciplines is changing profoundly. These changes are being driven by systems biology, a new approach to biology, and which will increasingly transform medicine from disease-driven and reactive to health-driven and predictive and preventative.