Nanomedicine (2/3)

by Ferrari, M. (Univ. of Texas Health Science Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University, Houston, USA)

Tuesday 12 Jun 2007, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Zurich

500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)

With its ability to interface with biology on multiple dimensional scales, all the way down to the molecular and atomic domains, nanotechnology emerges as a promising candidate to help negotiate some of the bottlenecks that have impeded progress in the conquest of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and the multitude of bodily afflictions that "flesh is heir to". No, the Bard himself was not active in nanomedicine, as far as history as reported - but vast swaths of human knowledge are currently developed, refined and reinterpreted to provide new nanoscopic tools against disease. From physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, biology, the clinical disciplines and many others fields still, alliances are being formed to score successes in the early detection of disease from biological fluids, the molecular identification of pathological lesions in radiological imaging, the directed localization of therapeutic agents that maximize efficacy while reducing undesired collateral damage, and the intelligent release of drugs from implants inspired by the body's own immune and endocrine functionalities.

Slides M.Ferrari_CERN_12Jun07.pdf