Functional Nanodevices

As noted above, it is most probable that future therapeutic nanodevices will operate in a prophylactic manner. They will circulate within the blood stream until attracted to a target through a chemical signal. After following the gradient of the signal they 

Clearly many aspects of medicinal chemistry, nanoengineering and supramolec-ular chemistry will have to be brought together if functional nanodevices are to be manufactured and used in vivo. The main challenge will be to verify that the devices work as anticipated and, most importantly, cause no harm. 

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It is noteworthy that self-assembly of anisotropic nanostructures, such as nanorods or nanowires, into well-controlled hierarchical arrangements represents a challenge in view of the integration of such nano-objects with unique properties within functional nanodevices for optoelectronic, information storage, catalysis, etc. that are frontier areas of research in chemistry and materials science. 

Despite advances, it seems unlikely that the reductive approaches outlined above can, by themselves, teach the level of control, fiexibiUty, discrimination, and versatiUty of atomic and molecular manipulation that will be needed to manufacture the molecular and suptamoleculat nanodevices envisaged to be the products of nanotechnology. Studies of biological nanodevices (eg, proteins) suggest that under proper conditions, atoms and molecules can assemble into functional nanoscale units that can carry out all the functions of life. 

The formation of nanostructures such as nanodot arrays has drawn a great attention due to the feasible applications in a variety of functional structures and nanodevices containing optoelectronic device, information storage, and sensing media [1-3]. The various methods such as self-assembled nanodots from solution onto substrate, strain-induced growth, and template-based methods have been proposed for the fabrication of nanodot arrays on a large area, [4-6]. However, most of these works can be applied to the small scale systems due to the limited material systems. 

CNTs own excellent materials properties. DNA is an excellent molecule to construct macromolecular networks because it is easy to synthesize, with a high specificity of interaction, and is conformationally flexible. The complementary base-paring properties of DNA molecules have been used to make two-dimensional crystals and prototypes of DNA computers and electronic circuits (Yan et al., 2002 Batalia et al., 2002). Therefore functionalization of CNTs with DNA molecules has great potential for applications such as developing nanodevices or nanosystems, biosensors, electronic sequencing, and gene transporters. 

De Novo Design Approach Based on Nanorecognition Functional Molecules/Materials and Nanosensors/Nanodevices... 

As sometimes happens, those most interested in this question have been science fiction writers. In 1995, for example, Neil Stephenson wrote a novel called The Diamond Age describing a world in which Drexlerian nanodevices were part of one s daily existence. One function for which they were used by the government was as invisible spies that followed citizens wherever they went, going so far in some cases as to enter their bodies to conduct their spying functions. 

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