Gulf between rich, poor will grow if nanotech opponents prevail

January 28, 2004 | Source: KurzweilAI

The chasm between have and have-not countries will grow even wider if nanotechnology research is blocked by the unbalanced positions of high-profile opponents like Prince Charles, warns a new analysis from a leading global medical ethics think tank.

In an article to be published by the Institute of Physics’ journal “Nanotechnology,” and released Jan. 28 online at Nanotechweb.org, the authors say the potential health, environmental and economic benefits for developing countries of nanotechnology (NT) include:

  • Improved detection of cancer and HIV/AIDS by tagging biological molecules with nanometer-sized markers, avoiding in the process many drawbacks associated with organic dyes conventionally used to mark cells;
  • Improved detection of tuberculosis with quantum dot optical biosensors. Development plans for a nanotech-based diagnostic kit to reduce the cost, time and the amount of blood required for TB tests was recently announced in India;
  • Inexpensive miniaturized medical diagnostic devices easily used in remote regions;
  • More effective delivery of drugs and vaccines packaged in nano-particles, allowing more precise targeting to areas of the body where medications are needed, thereby producing stronger responses with fewer side effects, possibly at lower cost;
  • The ability to repair skeletal tissue damaged by traffic accidents, the so-called “unseen epidemic” of developing countries, using nanotech-based bone scaffolds;
  • Better monitoring of soil and crop toxicity levels through enzyme biosensors;
  • Improved water purification technologies;
  • More effective clean-up of large oil spills.

    “While there are legitimate risks that need to be managed, an exclusive focus on the risks will create another divide — the nano-divide — similar to the digital and genomics divides between industrialized and developing countries,” says Dr. Peter Singer, Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. “There is a failure adequately to consider and understand how nanotechnology can bring benefits to 5 billion people in developing countries.”