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

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

15.5 Nanorobot Mechanocompatibility

Unlike pharmaceutical agents whose interactions with biology are largely chemical in nature, medical nanorobots will interact both chemically and mechanically (Chapter 15.1) with human tissues and cells. Similarly, traditional biomedical device implants (Section 15.2.1) produce both chemical and bulk mechanical [6049] effects, but nanoorgans and nanoaggregates include active nanoscale features and moving parts that can apply spatially heterogeneous mechanical forces at the microscopic and molecular scale. Thus any discussion of biocompatibility in nanomedicine must necessarily include an analysis of the mechanical biocompatibility [5728], or mechanocompatibility, of nanorobotic systems as they interact with the tissues and cells of the human body.

Section 15.5.1 describes the mechanical interactions of nanorobotic systems with human skin and other epithelial tissues. This is followed by a discussion of mechanical tissue penetration and leakage as a result of perforation (Section 15.5.2), and mechanical interactions with vascular systems (Section 15.5.3), with extracellular matrix and tissue cells (Section 15.5.4), and with nontissue cells such as erythrocytes, platelets, and leukocytes (Section 15.5.5). Electrocompatibility is briefly mentioned (Section 15.5.6), followed by a more detailed review of cytomembrane and intracellular mechanocompatibility (Section 15.5.7). The discussion concludes with a brief consideration of nanorobot-nanorobot mechanocompatibility (Section 15.5.8).

Last updated on 30 April 2004