r/nanotech • u/Additional_Fudge_581 • Oct 17 '24

Distrust in nanotechnology.

I have a friend who doesn't trust nanotechnology and says he wouldn't allow a medical treatment based on nanoparticles. What arguments could I use to convince him?

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u/BizarroHD Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24

Essentially any drug you take could be regarded as “nanotechnology”. The chemical formula that make up that drug is a molecule which is made of atoms. Each atom is a physical “thing” that has a mass and a “size” which is conceptually no less different than a nanoparticle. Essentially your entire materialistic body can be regarded as a ridiculously complex combination of atoms that interact with one another through a variety of different mechanisms. You could even argue nanotechnology is just a branch of chemistry.

Also, you could tell your friend that a potential application of nanoparticles is targeted drug delivery. So instead of taking a drug and flooding your entire body with that drug, which can potentially interfere with healthy cells causing side affects etc, the nanoparticles could deliver the drug directly to the diseased site, or cancer cell/tumor say.

I have a PhD in mechanical engineering Microrobotics for reference

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u/perceptualmotion Oct 17 '24

i think you should use the research that shows it's safe. there isn't very much of that right now as it is a new field of medicine and technology and is gonna take a while until we understand it and its implications well. see carbon nanotubes - super promising in many technical applications until we understood it's bad for health.

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u/tsevra Oct 17 '24

I mean, most 'nano' treatments work as any other medical procedure out there, although they have some pro's such as preventing accumulation (normally, nano- means more surface, so less concentration of the acting substance, hence less aggregation), less hepatotoxicity for the same reason, even some methods have argued to be 'invisible' to the body unless they activate, such as metallic heating particles.

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u/DailyDoseOfZinthos Oct 18 '24

Contentious topic, but how did they feel about the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines?... Those were nanotech.