Nanorobots for Drug Delivery?

Roland Piquepaille writes "The idea of using nanorobots to deliver drugs and fight diseases such as cancers is not new. But there are still lots of issues to solve before nanorobots can diagnose our diseases and treat them. Now, an international team of researchers has designed a software and hardware platform of a nanorobot to be used in medical applications. The researchers think their nanorobots could become available around 2015. 'The proposed platform should enable patient pervasive monitoring, and details are given in prognosis with nanorobots application for intracranial treatments. This integrated system also points towards precise diagnosis and smart drug delivery for cancer therapy.'"

Re:Interference

[Falstius]

Considering how quickly cellphone frequencies (900MHz and up) are absorbed by tissue, I don't see how this is a viable solution. Most implanted devices communicate at 100MHz or less. There is a 400MHz band available for these types of applications, but I haven't seen it widely used yet. The article has pretty much zero details but it looks like the guy does purely conceptual work and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Anyway, the real problem with these things is how to power them. Once we have nanorobots that work off blood sugar, that will be exciting. That might be a good time to become paranoid too.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[wizardforce]

WE ARE THE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.

The BORG strive for perfection, not assisting other species. They have no need to justify their actions to any inferior species. But you are correct that in Startrek the BORG use nanomachines to assimilate other species into the collective or in the case of species 8472 it was used as a weapon to supress the retalitory invasion of species 8472 after the BORG invaded fluidic space. Which actually is sort of an application of nanotechnology- a weapon against disease. Cancer? dead. viruses? not really alve so dead-er? Bacteria+Fungi dead. are your cells not repairing that genetic damage like they should? nanorobes. need to fix bone? make a nano-scaffold to allow bone tissue to regrow bone correctly. right now as it stands, the best we have to deal with drug delivery without nanorobes would be micelles and similar structures composed of surfactants, cell surface receptors and enclosing a drug of some sort. the cell surface receptor triggers endocytosis in cells which take in the micell and allow the drug inside to be delivered to the inside of the target cell. very specific but also very experimental.

Re:Terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

Block an artery on command- cause a stroke-- blackmail with that threat. Hell, once these things exist, you could claim you've injected someone and theyd never know...