Watching the Advance of Nanotechnology
Permalink | View Comments (0) | Post Comment | Posted by Reason

If you have an eye for long term trends in medicine, you should be watching for progress towards molecular manufacturing and dry nanotechnology. Much of what currently goes on under the heading of nanotechnology in medical and manufacturing industries is simply progress in nanoscale fabrication and application of devices using nanoscale fabrication - good stuff, especially for medical diagnostics, but still a way away from precise molecule-by-molecule mass manufacture.

The level of progress towards dry nanotechnology today determines whether we will see the nanotechnologies of radical life extension arrive in 20 years, 30 years or 50 years. Robert Freitas' respirocytes and other nanorobots form the basis of an entirely new way of thinking about engineering in the human body. There are no theoretical obstacles to building replacements for blood, bone, and even internal cellular components that are hundreds of times more efficient and durable than the biological machinery we currently use - it's just going to be a lot of work.

Nanomedicine will take over enhancing our health and life spans when the gains provided by future regenerative medicine come up short. It's in our interest to see the groundwork for nanotechnology moving ahead as rapidly as possible.

If you'd like to keep track of progress, Responsible Nanotechnology is a good place to start. I may not agree with all of their concerns (or proposed solutions) for the future of technology, but they have their fingers on the pulse and provide good overviews of current trends and advances.

Comments
Post a comment; thoughtful, considered opinions are valued. Please note that comments incorporating ad hominem attacks, advertising, and other forms of inappropriate behavior are likely to be deleted.









Remember personal info?






First Steps

The Causes of Aging

Archives and Feeds

Required Reading

Initiatives

Benefiting from Medical Research

Objections Answered

Blogs of Interest

Creative Commons

  • All of Fight Aging!, with the exception of the introductory articles, is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to republish and rewrite Creative Commons licensed Fight Aging! content in any way you see fit, the only requirements being that you (a) link to the original, (b) attribute the author, and (c) attribute Fight Aging!.