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Anticipating big things
emerging in very small packages

Such a fantasy-inspired capability comes courtesy of a relatively new technology called nanoparticles that has demonstrated promise for some far-reaching applications outside of healthcare, particularly involving silver and carbon, and used in computer and tracking products. Nanotechnology involves the manufacturing and manipulating of objects in the 1 to 100 nanometer range. To give you a sense of how small this technology is, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. A human hair, for example, amounts to roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.

If you think there’s little to no medical applications for nanoparticles, except in Sick Bay on the Starship Enterprise, you’d be wrong. Medical applications might include biodefense films, textiles and coatings; antibacterial coatings on shunts and stents, as well as inclusion in bandages and dressings; and antiviral applications in injectable, injestable and topical drugs.

Just don’t expect nanoparticles to save traditional X-ray film from extinction as the healthcare industry migrates toward filmless digital technology.

"I think the tombstone may have already been crafted [for film]," said Steve Leach, CEO, NovaCentrix, which develops nanotechnology products for printable electronics, energetics and life sciences. "I believe there is research being performed where nanoparticles are being selectively delivered to tumors and the like for enhanced imaging and lasers or other means that are then used to destroy them."

Because nanoparticles and nanotechnology shows such promise in the healthcare arena, Healthcare Purchasing News asked Leach to share some foresight on realistic applications that may show up on purchase orders and invoices in the near future.

Steve Leach, CEO, NovaCentrix

Nanotechnology is bringing some improvements to patient diagnosis and care. From what we’ve seen, the market seems receptive to them, provided the patient benefits can be demonstrated. On the diagnostics side, we are seeing more and more work with the so called ‘lab on a chip’ technologies, which can shrink an assay lab down to the size of a cracker and improve results turnaround from days to hours or even minutes. As the technologies improve, meaning accuracy goes up, false readings go down and the variety of assays that can be performed increases, this is a sure-fire bet to be in mainstream products. Nanomaterials are also playing a role now in patient care, with forms of nanosilver, a natural antimicrobial agent, being used in a variety of wound-care products. I see this trend as only increasing, with similar material being used more broadly in medical drapes, gowns, masks and even coatings on hospital surfaces. This is all in an effort to reduce hospital-induced infections in patients. 

I mentioned that nanosilver is already being used in certain applications like wound dressings. Ten years from now it’s likely we will see nanosilver used on implanted surfaces, such as catheters, joints and even mechanical organs, to reduce the incidence of infection at the implantation site. Some evidence suggests, for example, that nanosilver might limit or prevent the formation of biofilms.

Ten years from now we will also see some of the research being conducted with drug delivery coming to the market. The work with nanoshells of gold is pretty well known, and there is a lot of work in linking antibodies or proteins to microscopic drug capsules, allowing the capsules to be delivered exactly to the targeted location. Drugs today are typically systemic: To fight an infection in your sinus cavities or to fight an infection in your digestive tract one takes the same pills by swallowing. Being able to specifically target the area of a tumor or infection with treatment has huge implications in reducing the side effects of the treatment, thereby increasing the quality of patient care and reducing the need for managing the side effects.

Rather than render a use obsolete, I see that nanotechnology can contribute to a set of tools that caregivers have available to them in battling health problems and improve the quality of patient life. One item that may go by the wayside is the use of broad spectrum antibiotics, where both useful and damaging bacteria are eliminated. Through the use of nanotechnology, targeted delivery becomes more possible and practical.  

These are absolutely realistic near-term applications for nanotechnologies, and most of these specific areas have early products already on the market. The next few years will see more advanced products in all of these areas which are currently in the development phase being launched. It is a very exciting time in healthcare product development, and we will all see the benefits. You can find our nanosilver in some of the world’s most advanced wound care dressings, and it’s our hope the spread of infections in surgical wards will be drastically reduced as new nanosilver-based antibacterial coatings and textiles come to market.

Somewhere along the line we came up with this notion that one day surgeons will release swarms of tiny little nano-robots into the bloodstream, to clean clogged arteries, repair damaged tissues, and even help the body battle cancers and pathogens. This notion does seem far-fetched, and I don’t see any nano-surgeries happening in the foreseeable future. More realistically, nano-technology can result in improved materials and materials manufacturing, which can in turn enable new families of miniaturized implants and possibly revolutionize the use of replacement bio-mechanical organs. [Recently], my mother swallowed a tiny camera that took eight hours of pictures along her digestive track as a means of diagnosis. How soon before it can affect the remedy either through micro, or should we say "nano," surgery or targeted drug delivery?   

The ability to print the circuit or code directly on the product packaging will mean that this labeling cost can be greatly reduced. The codes can be printed on the packaging in the same operation as the rest of the product labeling. Think of the electronic ink being another ink cartridge beside the black, magenta and cyan cartridges usually used today. With the lower cost of labeling, more products can be labeled. This, and the fact that the labels could be read remotely via radio, means better inventory tracking, and real-time inventory management can be more realistic to more industries. Anyone who’s been involved in a tedious physical inventory of a warehouse full of parts or a store full of products will appreciate the operational cost improvements that real-time remote inventory tracking can yield.