A Study On The Gecko Adhesive System

A Study On The Gecko Adhesive System

Nanoscience is the study of objects measured in nanometers. To give a better perspective of size, one nanometer is one–billionth of a meter, or about eighty thousand times smaller than the diameter of a single human hair. A particular application of nano–materials in nature is the use of nano–finger tips which allow geckos to walk on walls. The gecko adhesive system incorporates one million foot hairs or setae in on each finger. One hair or seta contains a thousand of spatula tips which allow the geckos to attach to the wall. Synthetic nano–materials can be produced which exhibit strong adhesion effects similar to the gecko nano–finger tips. There are already many nano–tech products on the market which utilize synthetic nano–materials. ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...The key to understanding cancer to improve diagnosis and treatment is complete biomarker characterization of different types of cancer. In order for correct diagnosis, multiple biomarkers must be detected simultaneously. The different phenotypes of cancer differ with aggressiveness on their metastatic behavior. A specific phenotype of cancer has a particular combination of biomarkers on its membrane, or the surface of the cell. These biomarkers act as a molecular signature for the anti–cancer agent. A nanoparticle can be functionalized with an antibody to target a specific biomarker. Due to the nature of nanoparticles and their small sizes, nanoparticles can be taken in by cells where larger particles would be excluded or cleared from the body. One way to deliver a drug using nanotechnology is engineering a nanoparticle so that it carries the pharmaceutical agent inside its core, while its shell is functionalized with a binding agent specific to a biomarker. A schematic of this mechanism is shown in Figure 1 (Nie S., et al 2007). Through the ligand binding agent, the targeted nanoparticle recognizes the cell as the functionalized portion of the nanoparticle shell interacts and binds with the cell membrane. The nanoparticle is ingested by the cell through receptor–mediated endocytosis, and interacts with the biomolecules inside the cell which then triggers the nanoparticle shell to

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