The impact of nanomedicine on rotator cuff lesions: A future outlook

Abstract

The scientific area of nanotechnology, which finds its origin in Professor Feynman’s speech ‘There is plenty of room at the bottom’ given in 1959 [1], has nowadays a profound impact in many other scientific areas including medicine. Nanotechnology includes the development, characterisation and application of structures, devices and systems with dimensions of 1-100 nm. At the nanometric scale, materials possess unique chemical, physical and biological properties, which are totally different to those of the same materials in a greater scale. Among some of the phenomena responsible for such properties are the very high ratio between superficial areas and volume, the electromagnetic forces and the predominance of interfacial phenomena. These features vary not only among different materials, but also for the same material on the bases to its dimension [2]. For example, the high reactivity of nanoparticles, their tendency to auto-assembly and their peculiar behaviours make them particularly useful to a great variety of applications including those for the clinical area.