Carbon nanotubes in medicine

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are very prevalent in today’s world of medical research and are being highly researched in the fields of efficient drug delivery and biosensing methods for disease treatment and health monitoring. Carbon nanotube technology has shown to have the potential to alter drug delivery and biosensing methods for the better, and thus, carbon nanotubes have recently garnered interest in the field of medicine. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are very prevalent in today’s world of medical research and are being highly researched in the fields of efficient drug delivery and biosensing methods for disease treatment and health monitoring. Carbon nanotube technology has shown to have the potential to alter drug delivery and biosensing methods for the better, and thus, carbon nanotubes have recently garnered interest in the field of medicine. The use of CNTs in drug delivery and biosensing technology has the potential to revolutionalize medicine. Functionalization of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) has proven to enhance solubility and allow for efficient tumor targeting/drug delivery. It prevents SWNTs from being cytotoxic and altering the function of immune cells. Cancer, a group of diseases in which cells grow and divide abnormally, is one of the primary diseases being looked at with regards to how it responds to CNT drug delivery. Current cancer therapy primarily involves surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. These methods of treatment are usually painful and kill normal cells in addition to producing adverse side effects. CNTs as drug delivery vehicles have shown potential in targeting specific cancer cells with a dosage lower than conventional drugs used, that is just as effective in killing the cells, however does not harm healthy cells and significantly reduces side effects. Current blood glucose monitoring methods by patients suffering from diabetes are normally invasive and often painful. For example, one method involves a continuous glucose sensor integrated into a small needle which must be inserted under the skin to monitor glucose levels every few days. Another method involves glucose monitoring strips to which blood must be applied. These methods are not only invasive but they can also yield inaccurate results. It was shown that 70 percent of glucose readings obtained by continuous glucose sensors differed by 10 percent or more and 7 percent differed by over 50 percent. The high electrochemically accessible surface area, high electrical conductivity and useful structural properties have demonstrated the potential use of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs) in highly sensitive noninvasive glucose detectors. CNTs have several unique chemical, size, optical, electrical and structural properties that make them attractive as drug delivery and biosensing platforms for the treatment of various diseases and the noninvasive monitoring of blood levels and other chemical properties of the human body, respectively. Carbon nanotubes can be metallic or semiconducting depending on their structure. This is due to the symmetry and unique electronic structure of graphene. For a given (n,m) nanotube, if n = m, the nanotube is metallic; if n − m is a multiple of 3, then the nanotube is semiconducting with a very small band gap, otherwise the nanotube is a moderate semiconductor. Thus all armchair (n=m) nanotubes are metallic, and nanotubes (5,0), (6,4), (9,1), etc. are semiconducting. Thus, some nanotubes have conductivities higher than that of copper, while others behave more like silicon. Due to their nanoscale dimensions, electron transport in carbon nanotubes will take place through quantum effects and will only propagate along the axis of the tube. These electrical and structural properties best serve CNTs as far as biosensing is concerned because current changes in the CNTs can signify specific biological entities they are designed to detect. The fact that CNTs are small (nm scale) allows them to deliver smaller doses of drugs to specific disease cells in the body thus reducing side effects and harm to healthy cells unlike conventional drugs, whilst improving disease cell targeting efficiency.