© 2003 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume IIA: Biocompatibility, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2003

15.3.6 Biocompatibility of Other Nanomedical Materials

A great variety of additional materials and nanoparticulates [6084] might be employed in the fabrication of medical nanodevices and nanorobots for which biocompatibility must be assessed. Only a few of these many possibilities can be mentioned here, including DNA (Section 15.3.6.1), nitinol (Section 15.3.6.2), metals and semiconductors (Section 15.3.6.3), and dendrimers (Section 15.3.6.4). Neural cell biocompatibility is briefly addressed in Section 15.3.6.5, and Section 15.3.6.6 examines the possible biofouling of medical nanorobots by natural biomaterials found in the human body. A short discussion of the biocompatibility of free diamondoid nanoparts from nanorobots, or free organic nanoparts set loose from biorobots (e.g., cell parts such as free organelles, released into the human bloodstream), may be found in Section 15.4.4. Interestingly, in 2001 Rice University established a new Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology [5229] to investigate the effects of novel nanomaterials on the environment [6258] and on biological systems [5227]; other efforts of this sort [6259] are strongly encouraged.

Last updated on 30 April 2004