RoboSurgeryand

NanoSurgeryReality vs. Imagination

By

Tom Brightbill

Excerpt

“…and pushed a machine, mounted on a delicate robot arm like a dental tool, over Bud’s forehead. The arm homed in automatically on the old gun, moving with alarming speed and determination.”

-From The Diamond AgeBy

Neal Stephenson

Robot Surgery Today

• Robots are used in surgery today (think cardiac surgery)

• Are more precise, create smaller incisions, leading to quicker recovery

• Just take over the job of a surgeon but aren’t particularly groundbreaking

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/heartcenter/pub/history/future/robotics.asp

Surgery Today-Large and Unwieldy

• Disease strikes and breaks down cells at the molecular level

• Tools, like scalpels, are crude and extremely large when compared to this scale

• Surgery= only b/c of cells’ ability to recover

Is Nanotech. in the Future of Medicine?

• Nanotechnology could:– Allow us to distribute medicine at the

molecular and cellular level– Kill cancer cells, or other diseases– Replace and repair cells (think artificial

organelles)– Clean our plague in arteries, preventing heart

attacks– Repair damaged DNA in chromosomes

Theoretical Nanorobot Design

www.nanotech-now.com/. ../EV-24-sm.jpg

Mas Information

• Due to the size of capillaries, these nanorobots would about about 3 microns across (human hair)

• It may be possible to inject a fleet of robots that would self-replicate and be programmed to a specific task

• Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Deoderant

NanoSurgery Could….

• Allow for physicians to just inject nanobots

• Hospitals=injection clinics

• Self-applied?• Unparalleled precision

http://www.nanotech-now.com/nanotechnology-glossary-V-Z.htm

Feasibility Issues/Problems

• No actual nanorobots have been built

• Understanding of conditions at that size are not well understood (physics at nanoscale, i.e. friction)

• Lubrication at that level is tricky

Acknowledgements

• http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nanotechAndMedicine.html

• http://www.clevelandclinic.org/heartcenter/pub/history/future/robotics.asp

• http://medicalsite.com/nano-surgery.htm• http://www.nanotech-now.com/nanotechnol

ogy-glossary-V-Z.htm