Plenty of room for Biology at bottom. An Introduction to Bionanotechnology. 2nd edition

Abstract

Nanobiotechnology is the branch of nanotechnology that, dealing with biochemical applications or uses, will led to a dramatic advancement in the medical science. Thus, on one hand nanobiotechnology is related to the fabrication and application of nanotechnological principles for the development and improvement of biotechnological process and products, i.e the use of nano-science for specific biological applications. On the other hand, the bionanotechnology concerns the use of biological building blocks such as their recognition and assembly for the development of nanotechnological applications at the nano-scale. Thus, nanobiotechnology ranges from the production of biomolecules at nano-scale to serve as drugs, to the development of novel, diagnostic tools, including, for example, recombinant human insulin, human interferon, human and bovine growth hormones, or therapeutics antibodies. However, nanotechnology could be described as technological applications using systems and devices with orders at the nanometer scale, i.e. one-millionth of a millimeter. And the formation of ordered structures by self-association at the nanoscale is just the first step toward the formation of ordered molecular structures. In the field of tissue engineering, for example, the self-assembled structures could serve as a threedimensional template for the formation of complex organs in the test tube. Thus, self-assembling peptides that form biocompatible hydrogels mimicking the extracellular matrix (ECM), can incorporate, for example, growth factors displaying cell-binding motifs.