Unit 7 Listen and Read:
Nanotechnology and its Applications in Medicine
Advancement in the field of nanotechnology and its applications to the field of medicines and pharmaceuticals has revolutionized the twentieth century. Nanotechnology is the study of extremely small structures. The prefix “nano” is a Greek word which means “dwarf ”. The word “nano” means very small or miniature size. Nanotechnology is the treatment of individual atoms, molecules, or compounds into structures to produce materials and devices with special properties. Nanotechnology involves work from top down, i.e. reducing the size of large structures to smallest structure e.g. photonics applications in nano electronics and nano engineering, top-down or the bottom up, which involves changing individual atoms and molecules into nanostructures and more closely resembles chemistry biology. Nanotechnology deals with materials in the size of 0.1 to 100 nm; however, it is also inherent that these materials should display different properties such as electrical conductance, chemical reactivity, magnetism, optical effects and physical strength, from bulk materials as a result of their small size.