© 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 1999

1.3.2.3 Nanomedicine in the 1990s

Despite the tremendous importance of molecular nanotechnology, a published 1993 literature review of robotics in health care included not a single reference to nanotechnology or to nanomedicine.²²⁵⁵ At this writing in 1998, the list of original post-1989 technical and popular nonfiction works that deal with nanomedical topics in the mechanical tradition is short enough to permit virtually an exhaustive listing, including Beardsley,¹²² Bova,²⁹⁷³ Coombs and Robinson,⁵⁷⁰ Crawford,²²⁷⁰ Drexler,^9,10,2397 DuCharme,³⁵⁸ Emanuelson,³²⁷⁰ Fahy,^{27,215,224,322,2271} Fiedler and Reynolds,⁷⁰ Freitas,^19,2300,1400 Kaehler,²²⁷² Klatz and Kahn,²⁹⁷⁹ Kurzweil,²³⁰⁹ Lampton,^168,330 Merkle,^{258,262,306,888} Merrill,³⁴⁸⁷ Minsky,¹³² More,^2992,2993 Ostman,²²⁸⁴ Reifman,²²⁷³ and Wowk and Darwin.²⁰ The first nanomedical device design technical paper was published in 1998 by Freitas in the biotechnology journal Artificial Cells,¹⁴⁰⁰ and the present trilogy (Nanomedicine) is the first book-length technical treatment of the medical implications of molecular nanotechnology.

The author again must caution enthusiasts that the full capabilities of these machines will not be realized without a great deal of sweat and toil by legions of well-funded and dedicated researchers working for many decades to develop the technology. One purpose of this book is to help motivate this future work.

Last updated on 5 February 2003