Nanopharmacology: History

-The term Nanotechnology was first introduced on December 29, 1959, in a talk at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize for Physics 1965), entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. He proposed to use a set of conventional-sized robot arms to construct a replica of themselves, but one-tenth the original size, then using that new set of arms to manufacture an even smaller set, and so on, until the molecular scale is reached. This discussion was the earliest vision of nanotechnology.

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History

R.Feynman (center) and R.  Oppenheimer (to viewer's right of Feynman) at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project.

Apparently, earlier, the first mention of nanotechnology was by J. C. Maxwell in 1867, when he proposed, as a thought experiment, a tiny entity that could handle individual molecules.

Reference:

- Cavalcanti A. 2003. Assembly automation with evolutionary nanorobots and sensor-based control applied to nanomedicine. IEEE Trans Nanotechnol 2(2):82–87.

- Asiyanbola B, Soboyejo W. For the surgeon: an introduction to nanotechnology. J Surg Educ. 2008 Mar-Apr;65(2):155-61.

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1965

First example of lipid vesicles which later became known as liposomes.

Reference: Bangham AD, Standish MM, Watkins JC. Diffusion of univalent ions across the lamellae of swollen phospholipids. J Mol Biol. 1965 Aug;13(1):238-52.

1976

First controlled release polymer system of macromolecules.

Reference: Langer R, Folkman J. Polymers for the sustained release of proteins and other macromolecules. Nature. 1976 Oct 28;263(5580):797-800.

1985

Discover of dendrimers

1989

First report of nanowire construction.

Reference: Kwong YK, Lin K, Hakonen P, Parpia JM, Isaacson M: The application of reactive ion etching in producing free-standing microstructures and its effects on low-temperature electrical transport. J Vac Sci Technol B 7:2020–2024, 1989.

1994

First long circulating stealth polymeric nanoparticle

Reference: Gref R, Minamitake Y, Peracchia MT, Trubetskoy V, Torchilin V, Langer R. Biodegradable long-circulating polymeric nanospheres. Science. 1994 Mar 18;263(5153):1600-3.

1998

First quantum dot bioconjugate.

References:

-Bruchez M Jr, Moronne M, Gin P, Weiss S, Alivisatos AP. Semiconductor nanocrystals as fluorescent biological labels. Science. 1998 Sep 25;281(5385):2013-6.

- Chan WC, Nie S. Quantum dot bioconjugates for ultrasensitive nonisotopic detection. Science. 1998 Sep 25;281(5385):2016-8.

2000

First report of DNA tweezers.

Reference:  Yurke B, Turberfield AJ, Mills AP Jr, Simmel FC, Neumann JL. A DNA-fuelled molecular machine made of DNA.

Nature. 2000 Aug 10;406(6796):605-8.

2001

First nanowire nanosenser.

Reference:  Cui Y, Wei Q, Park H, Lieber CM. Nanowire nanosensors for highly sensitive and selective detection of biological and chemical species. Science. 2001 Aug 17;293(5533):1289-92.