Nanoparticles have contributed to profound medical advances like the COVID-19 vaccine, but without oversight, they pose ethical and environmental issues.
Cardiovascular disease and cancer share many parallels in their origins and how they develop. Nanoparticles offer one potential way to effectively treat both with reduced side effects.
The proteins that cover nanoparticles are essential to understanding how they work in the body. Across 17 proteomics facilities in the US, less than 2% of the identified proteins were identical.
The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines put nanomedicine in the spotlight as a potential way to treat diseases like cancer and HIV. While the field isn’t there yet, better design could help fulfill its promise.
Some vaccine hesitancy is based on a fear of the nanoparticles used in mRNA vaccines. But humans have been interacting with nanoparticles for millennia, and we use nanotechnology-based devices every day.
Higher doses of radiotherapy for cancer treatment destroy more healthy tissue as well as more tumour cells. Gold nanoparticles sensitize tumours to radiation, making treatment more effective.
These tiny nanoparticles might provide a new way to see what’s happening in the brain and even deliver treatments to specific cells – if researchers figure out how to use them safely and effectively.
Nanoparticles are extremely tiny particles, with external dimensions smaller than 100 nanometres (0.0001 of a millimetre). Here’s what we know about nanotechnology in food.
These single-celled organisms naturally respond to the Earth’s weak magnetic field. Scientists are untangling how it all works, looking to future biomedical and other engineering applications.
Gold can be used to make jewelry, but also to fight cancer. Several clinical trials are currently underway in the United States where patients are being treated with gold nanoparticles.
Less-toxic hair dye would be a great invention. But discounting the risks that come with nanoparticles could undermine other efforts to protect human health and environmental from their effects.
Professor & Chair in Air Quality and Health; Founding Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Co-Director, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey, University of Surrey