October 5, 2017
Sara Blanco
Guest writer
Consumer Resources – Medical
Sponsored
Mexican researcher Miguel Jose Yacamán, director of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Texas, San Antonio, said that nanotechnology, considered the new industrial revolution, is a determining factor in the advances of medicine, and it is already being used by many laboratories, mainly in technology involving electros pinning equipment or nanofiber managing technologies.
Participating in the International Congress on Advances in Medicine (CIAM 2017) held at Expo Guadalajara, the researcher said that nanotechnology is linked to the range in which biology operates, hence its important to advance applications related to this aspect of science.
In his conference — Nanotechnology Applied to Medicine — he emphasized that the new industrial revolution is nanotechnology, which in turn is also linked to physics, chemistry and medicine.
He explained that this can be translated to synthetic biology, which means that, instead of analyzing what nature provides, there are future plans to synthesize living beings.
He told colleagues, researchers, doctors and students that one of the bases of nanotechnology is nanoparticles, that is, small pieces of metal, oxide or other compounds, which exist everywhere, in biomass, volcanic activities and even industrial activities, among others.
“Through engineering, particles are made for food, dental parts, antimicrobials, cosmetics, among others,” added the physicist.
José Yacamán, National Researcher Emeritus, with more than 500 publications in international journals, displayed some of the applications made in his research group, such as infection control and early detection of cancer.
“If you take silver nanoparticles with certain characteristics, they can destroy some infections,” José Yacamán explained. He further stated that they have tested such silver nanoparticles in the AIDS virus, which stick to their receptors and deactivate it.
He stressed that the best is yet to come in this field, and that they are beginning work to produce similar results in the brain of a mouse. He called on the young students at the expo to prepare for a Master’s or Doctorate degree and to devote themselves to science in these fields.
The renowned researcher, for his fundamental contributions to nanoscale physics, concluded that the only way a country like Mexico cannot be left behind is by strongly pushing education, and also by investing in research and technology development.
