Nanoparticle Movement

Researchers from Penn State University have recently developed new tools which allow them to move nanoparticles through a liquid. This would allow scientists to deliver drug payloads to specific cells. In the future this may be used to deliver cancer killing drugs to cancer cells. The report was issued from the National Science Foundation. Here you can watch an interesting video of the swimming nanoparticles. I think eventually we will have nanorobots that will be able to swim inside a person's body and correct damage to cells. This research may be a step towards that ultimate goal.

Here is an excerpt from the article.

Sen's work is driven by catalysis, the chemical phenomenon whereby a substance accelerates a chemical reaction but emerges unchanged at the end of the process. He and his team of students and colleagues focus their efforts on redox (reduction-oxidation) chemical reactions, where electrons and protons are broken away from their parent atoms and pumped back and forth between substances, liberating energy.

In the context of nanomotors, that energy manifests itself as an electrical gradient in the fluid surrounding the tiny objects. For many of the team's experiments, the motors are platinum/gold nanorods only two millionths of a meter long, a length less than one hundredth the thickness of a human hair.

You can read the press release at this website.