Model Question and Answers for APSC | What is nanotechnology? Discuss its uses in health care. Nanotechnology is the study and control of matter at the nanoscale, which is between 1 and 100 nanometers in size and where unique phenomena make it possible to use things in new ways. It is made of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. Nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modelling, and manipulating matter at this nano length scale.

Ans: Uses of nanotechnology in health care:

• How to find and treat cancer: Gold nanoparticles are being used as probes to find specific sequences of nucleic acids. They are also being tested in the clinic as possible treatments for cancer and other diseases.
• Drug Delivery: Nanotechnology researchers are working on a number of different therapies where a nanoparticle can help deliver medicine directly to cancer cells and reduce the risk of harming healthy tissue.
• Imaging and diagnostic tools: Tools made possible by nanotechnology are making it possible to make a diagnosis earlier, offer more personalised treatment options, and improve the success rate of therapy.
• Nanotechnology is being studied for both diagnosing and treating atherosclerosis, which is when plaque builds up in the arteries. In one method, researchers made a nanoparticle that looks like the "good" cholesterol in the body, which is called HDL (high-density lipoprotein) and helps plaque shrink.
• In genetics, the design and engineering of advanced solid-state nanopore materials could make it possible to make new gene sequencing technologies that can find a single molecule quickly and cheaply with little sample preparation and equipment.
• Regenerative medicine: Researchers are looking into many ways to use nanotechnology in regenerative medicine, such as engineering bone and nerve tissue.
• Researchers in nanomedicine are looking at how nanotechnology can be used to improve vaccines, such as by making it possible to give vaccines without using needles. Researchers are also trying to make a universal vaccine framework for the annual flu shot that would protect against more strains and take less time and money to make each year.

• Smart pills are nano-level electronic devices that look like pharmaceutical pills but have more advanced functions like sensing, imaging, and drug delivery.
• Nanobots: Nanobots are very small robots that work a lot like tiny They can be put into the body to fix or replace structures inside cells. By replacing DNA molecules, they can also copy themselves to fix a genetic flaw or even get rid of diseases. This building is still being built.
• Nanofibers: Nanofibers are used in wound dressings, surgical fabrics, implants, tissue engineering, and parts of artificial organs.
• COVID–19: Nanomaterials are starting to look like good substrates for image-based and clinical diagnostics of COVID-19 because of their unique optical, electronic, magnetic, and mechanical properties.