Impact of the Carbon Allotropes on Cholesterol Domain: MD Simulation

Abstract

In recent years, immense advancement has been made in the field of nanotechnology. This emerging field will indefinitely become a critical facet of many areas including chemistry, biology, electronics and optics, and will provide unique opportunities for researchers to innovate in unimaginable ways. Nanomaterials, because of their unique mechanical, thermal, optical and electronic properties, have reshaped many segments of modern science and engineering and are increasingly impacting our society, health care, and the environment. Specifically, nanotechnology has great potential in biomedical applications, as mammal/human biology is essentially a very complex system of nano-machines. Nowadays big changes are coming from the marriage of medicine and nanotechnology the new branch of science called nanomedicine or molecular medicine. A field of utilizing molecular assemblies at the nano-scale of about 100 nm or less for novel and alternative diagnostics and therapeutics, in incredible selectivity and accuracy not achievable through conventional means. One would hope that with the future development of nanomedicine, we will be able to think of today's incurable diseases as curable tomorrow, by looking at a problem at its molecular or even atomic levels and apply medical intervention at the molecular scale. Presently nanomedicine involves detection of particles (nanobiosensors), drug delivery systems, emulsions, and carriers for delivering vaccines and biomaterials with unusual properties and improved biocompatibility. Recently, within the realm of nano-scale, carbon nanotubes (CNT) are being tested as medical devices at an increasing rate. Just to mention a few examples: CNTs have been utilized as scaffolds for neuronal and ligamentous tissue growth for regenerative interventions of the central nervous system and orthopaedic sites (Hu et al., 2004), substrates for detecting antibodies associated with human autoimmune diseases with high specificity (Wang et al., 2004), carriers of contrast agent for enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (Sitharaman et al., 2005). When coated with nucleic acids (DNA or RNA), vaccines, and proteins, CNTs have been shown as effective substrates for gene sequencing and as gene and drug delivery vectors to challenge conventional viral and particulate delivery systems (Pantarotto et al., 2004; Kam et al., 2004; Liu et al., 2005; Lu et al., 2004) . Carbon nanotube has been also probed as a vehicle for drug delivery into selected cells (Liu et al., 2008) and as bio-sensor (Wisitsoraat et al., 2010). In this chapter we consider and test the idea that carbon nanotubes might be utilized to remove unwanted molecular aggregates, particularly excess cholesterol, from a living tissues.