The Nanotech BC Blog: Old Medicine, New Technology

Herbs play an important roll in folk medicine and one of the most important of them is turmeric. That bright yellow spice, in addition to providing taste and color to curry, is used to treat infection, arthritis, fever and many other illnesses.

Now curcumin, the substance that gives turmeric its color, is being combined with medical nanotechnology to fight cancer, Alzheimer's, and maybe more. Technology Review has an article on nanotech delivery systems that take molecular-scale doses of curcumin to tumors .

Medicine is one of the key places where nanotechnology can make a difference. On June 7th, Dr. Ellen Wasan of the BC Cancer Research Center spoke at the Nanotech BC Networking Session at BCIT. She presented on work she has been doing developing nanopharmacuticles that can take advantage of tumor physiology to deliver medicine directly to cancer cells. Dr. Wasan is using nanotechnology to solve toxicity, solubility and elimination problems.

Nanotech work is happening all over the world, yielding a wide variety of approaches to many devastating problems. This diversity comes from that fact that nanotechnology is no one set thing -- it's a broad enabling technology that gives researchers everywhere powerful new tools.