Nanobiotechnology

Nanobiotechnology is an emerging area of science which is concerned with the application of tools and processes in order to build devices for the study of objects in biological systems and applications for processes such as drug delivery and diagnostics.

When discussing nanobiotechnology it is useful to firstly define nanoscience and nanotechnology as the terms are closely linked.

The terms nanoscience and nanotechnology are derived from the unit of length, the nanometer. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter which would be the equivalent of a tiny fraction of the diameter of a human hair. An average atom is a fraction of a nanometer in size, whilst a molecule is around 1 nanometer and a protein is approximately 10 nanometers in diameter.

Nanoscience is a fusion of materials science, chemistry, biology, physics and engineering. Once referred to as molecular science, nanoscience can be considered as a convergence of physics, chemistry, materials science and biology dealing with characterisation and manipulation of matter on length scales between the molecular and the micron size.

Nanotechnology is concerned with the manipulation of objects in the nanoscale up to 100 nanometers. It may be considered as an engineering discipline because methods from nanoscience are applied to create products. Materials can be created by manipulating single atoms and molecules; therefore, new processes can be explored such as novel imaging techniques, gene therapy and drug delivery.

Nanotechnology is a cross-platform technology which means that its use is not strictly limited to the manipulation of atoms and molecules in chemical and biological applications but can also be applied to electronics, computing and mechanics. Nanobiotechnology is an area of research solely related to the life sciences, however, the nature of the work means that collaboration between the different branches of those sciences is possible and, in certain cases, encouraged.

Nanobiotechnology can be thought of in two ways; firstly, the application of nanobiological tools to biological systems and secondly, the use of biological systems as ‘templates’ in the development of nanobiologically-based replacements. The NACBO project will be mainly concentrated on the former of these approaches; however, future work may include work on templates.

Useful supporting information can be found at:

• The Institute of Nanotechnology (IoN): www.nano.org.uk
• Nanoforum (a European sponsored Thematic Network): www.nanoforum.org
• Foresight Institute: www.foresight.org