Dude, i would so have my nanobots grow me some wolverine claws. SHNICKT!! It would be on like Donkey Kong!
Carl M
· 3 years ago
In a way, _some_ designer drugs are nanotechnology. They do more or less what you describe in your HIV example. They go through the body and destroy only the "bad" cells. There are a couple of techniques used for this .. one is targeting a particular shape (much as in your example). They bounce around in the blood and only FIT on the bad cells. When attached, the bad cells are rendered ineffective. There will be enormous advances in this technique when we can design drugs with particular SHAPES. I'm guessing that we'll see (or hear about) big advances fairly quickly (within the next 10 years).
As for your vaccinations, there is a slight problem. When babies are vaccinated now, they are given a dose of the "bad cells" usually dead ones. This triggers an immune response and our bodies learn to recognize the invaders and learn to create (on demand -- sort of) an agent that will kill those particular cells. The original invaders injected into the body are gone fairly quickly. Things don't generally stick around in the body for long periods. The beauty of our immune system is that the necessary defense is manufactured locally (inside us) and continuously. It's a pretty cool system. I've no doubts that nanotechnology will make HUGE advances and that some of the most amazing and beneficial of those advances will be in medicine, but I'm not sure that a nano-immune system of the sort you envision will be one of the early advances.
But then again, who can tell? I'm certainly not one to make silly claims like nobody will ever need more than 640 K of memory.
Daniel
· 3 years ago
> I've no doubts that nanotechnology will make HUGE advances and that some of the most amazing and beneficial of those advances will be in medicine, but I'm not sure that a nano-immune system of the sort you envision will be one of the early advances.
No, I agree. It's quite a long way off, and the body's approach is likely to exceed any nanotechnology for decades to come.
Daniel
· 3 years ago
Ok, Carl. How about this. How about a more advanced version of the technology that starts by *monitoring* and aiding the body's defenses first.
So it introduces the bad cells to the body's immune system and then coaches the body along in building a superior defense -- all along keeping an eye out for an infection that starts overpowering the body. If that happens, the bots kick in and begin to neutralize the threat.
Until then, however, the goal is to bolster the body's own defenses via an advanced training system -- one that exposes it to known threats and teaches it how to counter them.
Thoughts?
dylan
· 3 years ago
I wonder if nano tech would make it easier to graft adamantium on your skeletal structure.... Either way, I would rather be skeletor than wolverine. Thats right. Skeletor.
Carl M
· 3 years ago
Well, the issue I have with the nanorobotic defense system is that the nanobots must stay in the bloodstream to continue to be effective. The problem is that stuff doesn't generally stay in the bloodstream long. So, the bots would have to escape the varous ways that things are removed from the blood. Perhaps this is not as big an issue as I imagine, I'm not a biologist, but it seems to me to be a pretty serious issue. Of course eventually these bots will be self-replicating (that is, they will be able to take building blocks from their environment and use them to create copies of themselves). This would have the potential to overcome the body's cleansing mechanisms.
Who knows. It's certainly going to be fun watching the advances over the next decades.
All Comments
As for your vaccinations, there is a slight problem. When babies are vaccinated now, they are given a dose of the "bad cells" usually dead ones. This triggers an immune response and our bodies learn to recognize the invaders and learn to create (on demand -- sort of) an agent that will kill those particular cells. The original invaders injected into the body are gone fairly quickly. Things don't generally stick around in the body for long periods. The beauty of our immune system is that the necessary defense is manufactured locally (inside us) and continuously. It's a pretty cool system. I've no doubts that nanotechnology will make HUGE advances and that some of the most amazing and beneficial of those advances will be in medicine, but I'm not sure that a nano-immune system of the sort you envision will be one of the early advances.
But then again, who can tell? I'm certainly not one to make silly claims like nobody will ever need more than 640 K of memory.
No, I agree. It's quite a long way off, and the body's approach is likely to exceed any nanotechnology for decades to come.
So it introduces the bad cells to the body's immune system and then coaches the body along in building a superior defense -- all along keeping an eye out for an infection that starts overpowering the body. If that happens, the bots kick in and begin to neutralize the threat.
Until then, however, the goal is to bolster the body's own defenses via an advanced training system -- one that exposes it to known threats and teaches it how to counter them.
Thoughts?
Either way, I would rather be skeletor than wolverine. Thats right. Skeletor.
Who knows. It's certainly going to be fun watching the advances over the next decades.