When you hear “nanotechnology,” the image that comes to mind may be one from a recent movie you have seen, maybe in the Avengers franchise or the Terminator series. Many of these films use nanotechnology in what may seem like an unrealistic way to make some science fiction “movie magic.” Nanotechnology is being studied as a way to help treat diseases inside your body. Now that sounds like something out of science fiction! But it’s not—it’s happening now.

Nanotechnology is the study of super small “nano-sized” tools that can be used to deliver medicine to different parts of the body to treat cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, and in different types of cancer, including brain tumors.

Historically, brain tumors have been difficult to treat because your brain is protected by a barrier system called the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier prevents harmful substances and toxins from getting into your brain, but unfortunately that means it will also block medications from getting in. That is exactly where nanotechnology comes in.

When nanotechnology was first used in relation to medicine in the 1990s (sometimes referred to as nanomedicine), the individual items were about 100 nanometers in size— around 1,000 times smaller than the width of a single sheet of notebook paper. But now, pieces of nanotechnology in medicine can be smaller than 20 nanometers or about 5,000 times smaller than a strand of hair!

To picture what nanotechnology looks like, imagine a hollow sphere made of proteins, metals, fats or other materials. The tiny sphere may contain different proteins or other substances on its outer surface that “tell” it where to go in the body. The hollow inside of this nanotechnology sphere carries the medicine to the target site (such as a tumor in the brain). The outside of the sphere gets past the blood-brain barrier and then deliver the medication hidden inside—sort of like a Trojan horse.

Pieces of nanotechnology typically enter the body through an injection. One simple shot can contain thousands of spheres! One advantage of nanotechnology is that it is small enough to safely slip past the blood-brain barrier defense system to deliver important medications to the brain. With the combined advantage of its design and size, nanomedicine is a helpful new tool in the fight against cancer. And don’t worry, nanotechnology does not stick around in your body for long. Most of it leaves your body anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days later in your urine.

Using nanotechnology to treat brain cancer only scratches the surface of all that nanotechnology includes. The devices can be made of different materials, be different shapes and can carry more than just medicine. Pieces of nanotechnology can enter your body in many ways too. But it’s a broad tool that scientists can use for many applications. 

Science is ever evolving and this ultramodern medicine delivery system to treat cancerous brain tumors is an exciting development. The work being conducted over recent years has helped turn nanotechnology use in medicine from something out of science fiction to science fact.