Nanomedicine, Vol. I: Basic Capabilities 

Nanomedicine, Vol. I: Basic Capabilities
By Robert A., Jr. Freitas
Publisher: Landes Bioscience
Number Of Pages: 509
Publication Date: 1999-06
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1570596808
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781570596803
Binding: Paperback

Molecular nanotechnology has been defined as the three-dimensional positional control of molecular structure to create materials and devices to molecular precision. The human body is comprised of molecules, hence the availability of molecular nanotechnology will permit dramatic progress in human medical services. More than just an extension of "molecular medicine," nanomedicine will employ molecular machine systems to address medical problems, and will use molecular knowledge to maintain and improve human health at the molecular scale.

Nanomedicine will have extraordinary and far-reaching implications for the medical profession, for the definition of disease, for the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions including aging, for our very personal relationships with our own bodies, and ultimately for the improvement and extension of natural human biological structure and function. This book will be published in three Volumes over the course of several years. The present Volume is the first in this series. Its intended audience is technical and professional people who are seriously interested in the future of medical technology -- particularly physical scientists, chemists, biochemists, and biomedical engineers engaged in basic research.

Summary: Basic capabilities, a very good start and a hope for tomorrow
Rating: 4

Nanotechnology is one of the most rapidly evolving fields in science, after a long period of gestation from 1950s on.

The applications of nanotech to medicine promise to be astonishing: better and longer lives, organ replacement without any immunogenicity, cancer defeating; and even a new type of human being, built up by biological and non-biological parts, in what is called singularity.

The field is so complex and has so many and widespread implications that, in the very latest period, a number of publication at different levels of depth is appearing.

This one is the first of an ambitious project dedicated to nanomedical applications. The volume is preceded by a skyhigh introduction, in which the possibilities of nanomedicine are depicted, and a sort of working plan traced.

What follows is an overwhelmingly quantity of data, which can be only appreciated and understood by readers with a deep background in sciences (MSc or PhD levels), owed to the great emphasis on chemistry, physics and physical chemistry.

The start is good and I sincerely hope that next volumes are at the same level.

For specialists only.

Summary: NanoMedicine-It's Not Science Fiction any more!
Rating: 5

This is an extremely comprehensive and scholarly work (of which there are 2 more volumes)on the subject of nanotechnology, especially as it can be applied to medicine. It is not however, an easy read. I am nothing intellectually close to the audience that this is written for, yet I have an expanded understanding of not only current technology, but also what the possiblities are. For the curious jr. scientist, or the real deal, this is an amazing book that can begin your journey into what I believe is the next great wave of technology of the 21st century.

Summary: Excruciatingly thorough
Rating: 5

I am uncertain of the wisdom of writing such a detailed book on technologies that mostly seem a couple of decades away.
But this book is a bargain even if you ignore the parts of it that deal with medicine.
Chapter 2 is by far the best survey I've seen of research that might constitute important steps toward a molecular assembler.
Section 6.5.7 takes only one page to present a strong argument which implies that almost all other discussions of global warming are asking the wrong questions.

Summary: Predicting the future by making it happen
Rating: 5

I'm a research engineer with a major U.S. corporation, and I think that Nanomedicine is an awesome book - Freitas obviously did a huge amount of work in writing this book. It isn't light reading - you need a college-level scientific education to really understand it, but even those without a technical background will appreciate the solid foundation that this provides for the tremendous advances that advanced nanotechnology will make possible. At any rate, if you want to understand the coming nanotechnology revolution in medicine, you must read this book.

I was very