Nanotechnology in Modern Medicine

169 Pages·2023·4.849 MB·English

by  Sanjeeva Witharana, M. T. Napagoda

Sanjeeva Witharana
M. T. Napagoda   Editors
Nanotechnology
in Modern
Medicine
Nanotechnology in Modern Medicine
·
Sanjeeva Witharana M. T. Napagoda
Editors
Nanotechnology in Modern
Medicine
Editors
Sanjeeva Witharana M. T. Napagoda
Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Medicine
University of Moratuwa University of Ruhuna
Moratuwa, Sri Lanka Galle, Sri Lanka
ISBN 978-981-19-8049-7 ISBN 978-981-19-8050-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8050-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Contents
1 Introduction to Nanotechnology ................................. 1
Mayuri Napagoda, Darsha Jayathunga, and Sanjeeva Witharana
2 Biological Applications of Nanofluids: Antimicrobial Activity
and Drug Delivery .............................................. 19
Ziyuan Wang, Zichen Wang, Meng Zhang, Jiandong Cui,
Ming Xie, and Yunhong Jiang
3 Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery ................................ 47
Mayuri Napagoda and Sanjeeva Witharana
4 Nanotechnology in Virology ..................................... 75
Mayuri Napagoda, Priyalatha Madhushanthi,
Dharani Wanigasekara, and Sanjeeva Witharana
5 Nanomaterials for Wound Healing and Tissue Regeneration ........ 109
Mayuri Napagoda, Priyalatha Madhushanthi, and Sanjeeva Witharana
6 Applications of Nanotechnology in Dermatology .................. 135
Mayuri Napagoda, Gaya Bandara Wijayaratne,
and Sanjeeva Witharana
v
Chapter 1
Introduction to Nanotechnology
Mayuri Napagoda, Darsha Jayathunga, and Sanjeeva Witharana
Abstract In principle, nanomaterials are materials with at least one dimension of
100 nm or less. Although nanotechnology; the science of the nanoscale, has emerged
as a scientific discipline in the late twentieth century, human exposure to nanoma-
terials has begun in the times of ancient civilizations. In comparison to their bulk
counterparts, nanomaterials exhibit unique physical and chemical properties hence
having enormous applications in different fields such as agriculture, engineering,
medicine and biomedical sciences. The main approaches for the synthesis of nano-
materials are bottom-up and top-down approaches which utilize various physical,
chemical or biological synthesis procedures. This chapter gives a general overview
of the history of nanotechnology, the properties of nanomaterials, their classification
as well as the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials.
· · ·
Keywords Bottom-up approach Characterization Nanomaterial Top-down
approach
1.1 Nanotechnology—Historical Perspective
Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary field which involves the design, synthesis,
characterization and application of materials in the dimensions of the nanometer scale
(1 × 10–9 m). The prefix ‘nano’ is derived from the Greek word ‘nanos’ which means
‘a dwarf’ (Whatmore 2006). Over the past few decades, nanotechnology has revo-
lutionized many scientific areas including agriculture, food industry, engineering,
medicine, pharmaceutical industry and biomedical sciences.
B
M. Napagoda ( )
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna, Galle 80 000, Sri Lanka
e-mail: [email protected]
D. Jayathunga · S. Witharana
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 10 400
Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 1
S. Witharana and M.T. Napagoda (eds.), Nanotechnology in Modern Medicine,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8050-3_1
2 M.Napagodaetal.
1.1.1 Pre-epoch of Nanotechnology
Although nanotechnology started to emerge as a scientific discipline in the late twen-
tieth century, it has a long history of humans synthesizing and utilizing nanoparticles
without understanding the reasons for their specific features that differ from bulk
material. The world’s oldest use of nanomaterials is attributed to the use of carbon
nanotubes (CNTs) as a covering for inner walls of pottery shards recovered at Keeladi,
Tamilnadu, India, around the sixth to third century BC (Kokarneswaran et al. 2020).
Passing more milestones in the nanotechnological evolution between the fourth to
eighteenth centuries AD includes the coloured glass by the Romans, Lycurgus cup,
vibrant stained glass windows in European cathedrals, Egyptian cosmetics and hair
dyes, and Islamic potteries that have used copper and silver nanoparticles to improve
lustre, renaissance Mediterranean pottery, and “Damascus” sabre blades (Bayda et al.
2019; Nanotechnology Timeline 2022). Later on, in 1857, Michael Faraday unveiled
the colloidal “ruby” gold that created a range of colours depending on the illumination
conditions (Tolochko 2018).
1.1.2 Modern Epoch of Nanotechnology
The invention and characterization of the nanometer by Richard Zsigmondy marked
the beginning of nanotechnology’s notion in 1925. Later he was able to measure the
size of gold nanoparticles using an ultra-microscope. The initiation of modernistic
nanotechnology commenced with the concept of “manipulating matter at the atomic
level” by Nobel laureate Richard Feynman in 1959 (Toumey 2008). Fifteen years
later, the word “nanotechnology” was introduced by Norio Taniguchi in commen-
tating on nanoscale precision machining in semiconductor manufacturing. This was
the next paramount phenomenon that contributed to the subject area. He demon-
strated that nanotechnology is the consolidation of four material mechanisms at the
atomic or molecular level: processing, separation, consolidation, and deformation
(Guttula et al. 2020). Modern nanotechnology attained its next level with the finding
of fullerenes by Kroto, Smalley, and Curld in the 1980s and the introduction of molec-
ular manufacturing by Eric Drexler. Drexler conceptually defined nanotechnology
as an approach to manipulating individual atoms and molecules that is deterministic
rather than stochastic and promoted the significance of nanotechnology through his
speeches and publications. In 1981, he published a scientific paper in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Molecular Engineering: An Approach
to the Development of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation” (Hulla
et al. 2015). Intervention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), atomic force
microscope (AFM), nano layer-base metal–semiconductor junction transistor, which
is the smallest nanoelectronic device in the world, buckyballs and the origination of
cluster science have taken place in the same era furnishing the discipline (Mansoori
and Soelaiman 2005; Guttula et al. 2020).
1 IntroductiontoNanotechnology 3
A turning point in nanoscale manufacturing was Don Eigler’s and Erhard
Schweizer’s manipulation of the IBM logo using 35 atoms of xenon in 1989 (Eigler
and Schweizer 1990). This is illustrated in Fig. 1.1. Commercialization of nanotech-
nology was evident since the early 1990s, with Nanophase Technologies and Helix
Energy Solutions Group companies being the first to enter the industry.
The synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNT) (Fig. 1.2) by Iijima further accelerated
the nanotechnological evolution (Iijima 1991). Extraordinary properties of single-
walled CNTs led it to be a part of a variety of applications in the fields of photonics,
electronics, fabrics, biology, energy and communication etc. (Bayda et al. 2019). In
1992, catalytic nanomaterials of MCM-41 and MCM-48 were discovered and have
since been used widely in crude oil refining, drug delivery, and water purification
(Pradeep 2007). Further, the introduction of dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), the
controlled nanocrystal synthesis method and the design of quantum dots synthesizing
methods have contributed to the advancement of nanoscience (Ginger et al. 2004;
Alivisatos 2008; Li and Zhu 2013).
Fig. 1.1 The IBM logo created by positioning Xenon atoms on a nickel substrate (adapted with
permission from Bayda et al. 2019)
Fig. 1.2 Carbon nanotubes
(adapted with permission
from Bayda et al. 2019)
4 M.Napagodaetal.
1.1.3 Recent-Epoch of Nanotechnology
From the beginning of the 2000s, nanotechnology-based consumer products began
to appear in the market which further boosted research and development. In 2003,
the researchers at Rice University developed gold nano-shells that could be used
in breast cancer treatments as a substitute for existing invasive treatment methods
(Young et al. 2012). The sector expanded further through remarkable inventions that
include carbon dots (2004), theories for DNA-based computation and “algorithmic
self-assembly” (2005), the nanoscale car (2007), a non-harmful virus-based lithium-
ion battery (2007), robotic DNA nanodevices (2009–2010), nanoscale 3D world map
(2010), carbon nanotube computer (2014), tic-tac-toe game DNA nano board (2018)
and objects shrinking to the nanoscale (2018). These opened up new interdisciplinary
opportunities at low cost, low complexity and low environmental impact.
As of today, nanotechnology has contributed to over 5000 commercially available
products (The Nanodatabase 2022), and over 22,000 patents where IBM Corpora-
tion, Samsung Electronics, Intel Corporation, BOE Technology Group and Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing are the leaders in holding intellectual property rights
(Statnano 2022). Furthermore, China, USA, India, Iran and South Korea have become
the top five countries in nanotechnology research publications (Zhu et al. 2017;
Zhao et al. 2021; NBIC+ 2022). Nanotechnology has recently ramped up multi-
disciplinary research activities in conjunction with machine-learning algorithms,
predictive analytics, and nanoinformatics, all of which are helping to shape its
future path. The regulatory framework also has improved since its initiation in the
1900s, and a growing number of international organizations are actively attempting
to enhance it in order to safeguard the safety, health, and environmental friendliness
of nanotechnology and its outcomes as it develops (Thomas et al. 2006).
1.2 Properties of Nanomaterials
The high surface area over volume ratio phenomenon is mainly accountable for the
exceptional properties of the nanomaterials (Asha and Narain 2020). As the size of
the particle decreases, the ratio of surface area to the volume increases and as a result,
the percentage of atoms residing on the surface of a material increases. For example,
for a particle of 1 μm in diameter, only about 0.15% of the atoms are on the surface,
however, this percentage increases up to about 20% when the diameter of the particle
decreases to 6 nm (Issa et al. 2013).
The properties of nanomaterials differ substantially from those of their bulk coun-
terparts. Due to the negligible number of surface atoms, the properties of bulk mate-
rials are almost entirely determined by the interior atoms. However, the properties
of nanomaterials are significantly affected by surface atoms which possess exotic
localized electronic states (Asha and Narain 2020). Therefore, size-dependent effects
become more prominent at the nanoscale, for example, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)
1 IntroductiontoNanotechnology 5
show characteristic colours depending on the size and the shape (Fig. 1.3), although
the solution appears in yellow when in the bulk (Njoki et al. 2007;Baigetal.2 021).
The electronic structure of the nanomaterial is largely dependent on the surface
atoms and as a result, optical properties like reflection, transmission, absorption, and
light emission differ depending on the size, composition and arrangement (Asha and
Narain 2020). The size-dependent optical properties of nanomaterials are mainly due
to the change in the energy band gap that influences the surface plasmon resonance
of the nanomaterials (Malhotra and Ali 2018; Asha and Narain 2020).
In comparison to the bulk materials, nanomaterials possess different electronic
properties. An example is boron allotropes. In the bulk form, it is not considered a
Fig. 1.3 A photo showing the colours of gold nanoparticles with different particle sizes and the
UV–vis spectra (normalized) for Au nanoparticles with different particle sizes in an aqueous solution
(adapted with permission from Njoki et al. 2007)