October 2011 » Special Issue Feature
A Small Revolution
In fewer than 15 years, nanomedicine has gone from fantasy to reality.
"Many trace the origins of nanomedicine to a talk Richard Feynman gave at Caltech in 1959—There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. During the lecture, Feynman proposed the idea of chemical manipulation at the atomic level and suggested that patients might one day “swallow the surgeon” in the form of tiny machines. Some 50 years later, researchers are still working to realize these dreams, but Feynman would no doubt be impressed by the list of nanomedicine applications being developed today. Nanomaterials have made their way into drug-delivery systems and diagnostics, and are quickly becoming essential basic research tools."
